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SOTERIOLOGY 


A DOGMATIC TREATISE ON Is <u 
REDEMPTION 


SEP 20 1919 
. A 
Lov oereat sew 


BY how 
THE RT. REV. MSGR. JOSEPH POHLE, Pu.D., D.D. 
FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY AT ST, 
JOSEPH’S SEMINARY, LEEDS (ENGLAND), LATER PRO- 


FESSOR OF FUNDAMENTAL THEOLOGY IN THE 
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA 


ADAPTED AND EDITED 
BY 


ARTHUR PREUSS 


THIRD, REVISED EDITION 


B. HERDER BOOK CO. 


17 SouruH Broapway, ST. Louis, Mo. 
AND 
68, GREAT RussELL St., Lonpon, W. C. 


1919 


NIHIL OBSTAT 
Sti. Ludovici, die 17 Mati, 1919 


F.. G. Holweck, 
Censor Librorum 


IMPRIMATUR 
Sti. Ludovici, die 19 Matt, 1919 _ 
i Joannes J. Glennon, 


Archiepiscopus 
Sti. Ludovict 


Copyright 1913 
by 
Joseph Gummersbach 
All rights reserved 


Printed in U.S. A. 


First Edition, 1913 
Seeond Edition, 1916 
Third Hdition, 1919 


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PRINTING & BOOK MFG, CO. 
ST. LOUIS, MO. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGE 
INTRODUCTION I 
Part I. THe Worx or REDEMPTION . 3 
Prefatory Remarks : 3 
Cu. I, Christ’s Mediatorship as a Condition ag Our Re. 5 
demption . 5 
§ 1. The Possibility of He Roe ; 5 
§ 2. Congruity and Necessity of the Rednhere 13 
'§ 3. Predestination of the Redeemer . p 24 
Cu. II. The Redemption of the Human Race Through 
Christ’s Vicarious Atonement . : 35 
§ 1. The Reality of Christ’s Vicarious Aone: 35 
ArT, I. Vicarious Atonement Defined whe MERA 
Art. 2. The Dogma of Christ’s Vicarious Atone- 
ment Proved From Revelation nay, “At 
§ 2. The Properties of Christ’s Vicarious Ata eer 60 
Art. 1. Intrinsic Perfection of the Atonement 60 
Art. 2. Extrinsic Perfection or beans of the 
Atonement . : Poy sae 
§ 3. The Concrete Realization of Christ's Seasons 
Atonement . ‘ : 84 
Art. 1. Christ’s Death on ie Goes : 85 
ArT, 2. Christ’s Descent Into Hell QI 
Art, 3. The Resurrection . . <... IOI 
Part II. Toe THree Orrices of THE REDEEMER. . , IIO 
Cu. I. Christ’s Priesthood ets Tit 
§ 1. Christ’s Death a True Sacrifice . EET 
§ 2. Christ a True Priest 127 
Cu. II. Christ’s Prophetical Office 140 
«CH, JIT. Christ's RES 149 
APPENDIX 165 
INDEX . 167 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/soteriologydogma0Opohl_1 


INTRODUCTION 


Christology deals with the Person of our Di- 
vine Redeemer ; Soteriology (epi tis owrnpias Adyos ) 
considers the object for which He came into this 
world. This object was the Redemption of the 
human race“ 

Christ became our Redeemer or Mediator 
solely by His vicarious atonement, therefore, re- 
demption (mediation) and vicarious atonement 
are interchangeable terms. | 

The fallen race of Adam was not simply re- 
stored as a whole to its original state of bliss. In 
order to share in the graces of the Redemption 
-each individual human being must co-operate 
with the Redeemer. To be able to do this man 
needs (1) a teacher, who authoritatively instructs 
him in the truths necessary for salvation; (2) a 
priest who effectively applies to him the merits of 
the atonement; and (3) a king or shepherd, who, 
by the promulgation of suitable laws and pre- 
cepts, guides him on the way to Heaven. 

Hence our Divine Lord exercises a threefold 
function or office, namely (1) that of Teacher, 
(2) that of High Priest, and (3) that of King 


I 


2 INTRODUCTION 


or Shepherd... Cir.:-John-X1V,63 4h am the 
way (King), and the truth (Teacher), and the 
lite 4 Priest) = ; % 

Soteriology, therefore, naturally falls into two 
main divisions: I. The Work of Redemption; 
II. The Three Offices of the Redeemer. 


PART I 
THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


PREFATORY REMARKS 


The Redemption could not have been effected 
by a mediator who was either mere God or mere 
man. It required one who was both God and 
man. Christ, alone, being both God and man, 
was in a position to act as natural and moral 
mediator and to reconcile the amen race to its 
Creator. 

We have shown in a previous treatise that 
Christology * is founded on the doctrine of the 
Flypostatic Union. Similarly, Soteriology turns 
on the pivotal concept of the mediatorship of 
Christ and may be said to be implicitly contained 
in 2 Cor. V, 19: “God indeed was in Christ, 
reconciling the world to himself.” 

We have, therefore, to consider: (Ch. I), the 
mediatorship of Christ, the possibility of the Re- 
demption, its congruity and necessity, and, by way 
of a corollary, the highly interesting question 
whether or not the Incarnation was absolutely 


1 Pohle-Preuss, Christology, A- Dogmatic Treatise on the Incarnation, St, 
Louis 1913. 


> 


4 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


preordained; (Ch. II), the fact of the Redemp- 
tion, its reality, its properties, and the concrete 
mode of its realization. In connection with the 
last-mentioned point we shall also treat (Ch. IIT) 
of Christ’s Descent into hell and His Resurrec- 
tion from the soteriological point of view. 


: CHAPTER 


CHRIST’S MEDIATORSHIP AS A CONDITION OF OUR 
REDEMPTION 


SECTION. 1 


THE POSSIBILITY OF THE REDEMPTION 


1. DEFINITION OF THE TERM “MEDIATOR.” — 
A mediator (mediator, pectrs) is one who holds 
a neutral position between parties at variance, 
and is therefore apt to interpose between them 
as the equal friend of each. 

a) Thus, in the political domain, a neutral 
government sometimes intervenes between quar- 
relling powers by proffering its friendly offices as 
arbitrator. 

The notion of a mediator, therefore, comprises 
two distinct elements, viz.: (1) The exist- 
ence of two extremes in contrary opposition, 
and (2) a quality or characteristic proper to him 
who interposes, which enabies him to reconcile 
the parties at variance, 


This is the true Catholic notion of mediatorship. There 
is also an heretical one, which appears in the religious 


5 


6 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


systems of the Gnostics and the Arians. To exalt the 
Creator of the universe as far as possible above mere 
matter, which they regarded as intrinsically evil, the 
Gnostics invented a series of “intermediate beings,” 
which they called aeons, and which were supposed to 
bridge the gap between the Godhead and the material 
world. The last of these in a descending line was the 
so-called Demiurge, who as creator of the material uni- 
verse was believed to be the proper mediator between the 
absolute Being and the physical cosmos.? The Arians 
regarded the Logos as the most exalted of creatures and 
as creator of all the rest, and ascribed to him the office 
of mediator between God the Father and the universe 
created by the Logos. We have already disproved this 
error by showing, in our treatises on the Divine Trinity ° 
and the Incarnation,* that, so far from being a creature, 
the Logos is true God, consubstantial (dépuoovcws) with 
the Father. : 


b) A duly qualified mediator may exercise his 
functions either in the moral or in the ontological 
order.’ In some manner or other moral always 
presupposes ontological mediation, and hence the 
one cannot be conceived apart from the other. 


To perform the part of a moral mediator one must 
be able, either by one’s natural powers, or through the 
instrumentality of grace, to reconcile opposing extremes 
in the order of being. Hence the distinction between 


2 For a refutation of this dualistic Trinity, 2nd ed., pp. 49 sqq., St. 
error see Pohle-Preuss, God the Au- Louis 1915. 


thor of Nature and the Supernatural, 4Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Christology, 
and ed., pp. 17 sq., St. Louis 1915. 2nd ed., pp. 10 sqq., St. Louis 1916. 
8 Cfr. Pohie-Preuss, The Divine 5 In ordine morali sive ethico; in 


ordine ontologico sive essendi, 


MEDIATORSHIP 7: 


mediator naturalis and mediator per gratiam. Moses,* — 
the Levites, the Prophets, and the Apostles were medi- 
ators by grace. So is every Catholic priest in virtue of 
his ordination. As regards natural mediatorship, Christ 
is our only Mediator in the moral order, because He is 
the sole natural Mediator between God and man. ‘The 
fact of Christ’s existence is in itself a mediation, a bond 
between the Creator and His creatures. By uniting our 
humanity to His Divinity, He united us to God and 
God to us. He is of God and in God, but He is also 
of us and in us.”’* Being consubstantial with man as 
well as with God,’ Christ is the born mediator be- 
tween God and man (mediator naturalis). 

This unique natural mediatorship constitutes the foun- 
dation of an equally unique moral-mediatorship. The 
offended Deity -exacted adequate atonement for the 
sins of mankind, and therefore redemption or moral 
mediation was impossible except on the basis of a natural 
mediatorship.® 


c) It follows, by way of a corollary, (1) that 
mankind has but one mediator, because there is 
no natural mediator between God and man other 
than the Godman Jesus Christ; (2) that all 
other so-called “mediators” are such merely by 
grace. They owe their mediatorial power solely 
and entirely to Christ, and can consequently be 
called mediators only in a subordinate and sec- 
ondary sense. 


6 Cir. Deut. V, 5: “ Medius fui Catholic Theology, Vol. II, p. 140, 
inter Dominum et vos—I_ stood 2nd ed., London 1901. 
between the Lord and you.” 8 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Christology. 
7 Wilhelm-Scannell, A Manual of 9 V. infra, Sect. 2. 


8 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


No further argument is required to disprove the Prot- 
estant objection that Catholics obscure and degrade the 
unique mediatorship of Christ by admitting a host of 
priests and saints as co-mediators between God and 
man. ‘It is an essential function of the office of a 
mediator,’ says Aquinas, “to join together and unite 
those between whom he is to interpose; for it is in the 
middle that extremes meet. Now, to unite men with 
God perfectively belongs to Christ, through whom men 
are reconciled to God... . And therefore Christ alone 
is a perfect mediator between God and men, inasmuch as, 
by His death, He reconciled the human race to God... . 
There is, however, nothing to forbid others from being 
called mediators between God and men under a certain 
respect (secundum quid), in so far, namely, as they co- 
operate in uniting men with God, either by disposing 
them for such a union (dispositive), or by assisting them 
in the process of unification (ministerialiter).” 1° 


2. THE Docma.—Theologically speaking, Me- 
diation is synonymous with Redemption. That 
Christ was our natural Mediator is an article of 
faith, defined by the Council of Trent. “S7 quis 
hoc Adae peccatum [originale]... per alud 
remedium asserit tol quam per meritum unius 
mediatoris Domini nostri Tesu Christi, qui nos 


10 “ Ad mediatoris officium proprie  reconciliavit.... Nihil tamen pro- 
pertinet coniungere et unire eos, in- hibet aliquos alios secundum quid 
ter quos est mediator; nam extrema dict mediatores inter Deum et ho- 
uniuntur in medio. Unire autem mines, prout scil. cooperantur ad 


homines Deo perfective quidem con- unionem hominum cum Deo disposi- 
venit Christo, per quem homines tive vel ministerialhtter.” S. Theol., 
sunt reconciliati Deo. ... Et ideo 3a, qu. 26, art. 1.—Cfr. Franzelin, 


solus Christus est perfectus Dei et De Verbo Incarnato, thes. 46, Rome 
hominum mediator, inquantum per 1881, 
suam mortem humanum genus Deo 


CHRIST OUR MEDIATOR G4 


Deo reconcihavit in sanguine suo... anathema 
su.” Anglice: “If any one asserts that this 
sin of Adam [original sin], . . . is taken away 
. . . by any other remedy than the merit of the 
one Mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath 
reconciled us to God in His own blood, . . . let 
him be anathema.” *1 ae 

a) Moral mediation, or the Redemption 
proper, according to Holy Scripture, consists 
in the shedding of the blood of Him who was 
the sole, because the natural, Mediator be- 
tween God and man. Consequently, Christ’s 
moral mediatorship is based upon His natural 
mediatorship. Cfr. Col. I, 19 sq.: “Quia in 
ipso [scil. Christo] complacuit omnem plenitudi- 
nem imhabitare [| =mediatio ontologica natu- 
ralis| et per eum reconciliare omnia in ipsum 
pacificans per sanguinem crucis eius [== mediatio 
morals |— Because in him it hath well pleased 
the Father, that all fulness should dwell; and 
through him to reconcile all things unto himself, 
making peace through the blood of his cross.’ 22 
Both the ontological and the moral mediatorship 
of Christ are pregnantly summed up by St. Paul 
in I Tim. IT, 5 sq.: “ Unus enim Deus, unus 


11 Cone. Trid., Sess. V, can. 3 12 For a full explanation of this 
(in Denzinger’s Enchiridion Sym- text cfr. J. N. Schneider, Die Ver- 
bolorum, Definitionum et Declara- sohnung des Weltalls durch das Blut 
tionum in Rebus Fidet et Morum, Jesu Christi nach Kol. I, 20, Ratis- 
ed. Bannwart, n, 790, Friburgi bon 1857, 

1908). 


To. THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


et mediator Dei et hominum,? homo Christus 
Lesus, qui dedit redemptionem semetipsum pro 
ommbus “*— For there is one God, and one me- 
diator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 
who gave himself a redemption for all.” 


The Redemption of the human race began with the 
conception of Jesus Christ and was consummated in 
the shedding of His precious Blood on the Cross.2° 
Hence the functions of His moral mediatorship comprise 
all His human-divine (theandric) acts from the manger 
to Calvary. His mediatorial act par excellence was the 
institution of the New Covenant. “ Et ideo Novi Testa- 
menti mediator ** est, ut morte intercedente in redemp- 
tionem earum praevaricationum, quae erant sub priori 
Testamento, repromissionem accipiant — And therefore 
he is the mediator of the New Testament: that by means 
of his death, for the redemption of those transgressions 
which were under the former testament, they that are 
called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” 17 
In fact everything that Christ did-and does for us 
must be regarded as the result of His mediatorship, e. g., 
the institution of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the 
establishment of His Church, the mission of the Holy 
Ghost, the sanctification of souls,8 etc. 


b) We meet with a profound conception of 
Christ’s mediatorship in the writings of St. Au- 
gustine. This Father may be said to have antici- 
pated the objections of such later heretics as 


13 els Kat peolrns Ocot kal 15 Cir, Heb. X, 5. sqq. 
avOpwrwy. 16 diadykns KownHs peoitns, 
146 Sods éauroy dvriduvtpoy drép 17 Heb. IX, 15. 


TAYTWY, 18 Cfr. John XIV, 6, 


CHRIST OUR MEDIATOR LE» 


Calvin, who held that Christ is our mediator only 
according to His Divinity, and the older Lu- 
theran theologians, who attributed His mediato- 
rial action exclusively to His human nature.” 


The truth lies between these extremes. It is the God- 
man as such who is our Mediator, but only in His hu- 
man nature. “He is the mediator between God and 
man,” says St. Augustine, “ because He is God with the 
Father, and a man with men. A mere man could not 
be a mediator between God and man; nor could a mere 
God. Behold the mediator: Divinity without humanity 
cannot act as mediator; nor can humanity without Di- 
vinity ; but the human Divinity and the Divine humanity 
of Christ is the sole mediator between Divinity and hu- 
manity.”?° And again: “Christ is the mediator [be- 
tween God and man] not because He is the Word; for 
the Word, being immortal and happy in the highest de- 
gree, is far removed from the miseries of mortal men; 
but He is the mediator as man.” 71 


c) The Schoolmen went into the matter even 
more deeply by resolving the concept of media- 
tion into its constituent elements. 


19 Cfr, Bellarmine, De Christo, V, et divina humanitas Christi.” Serm., 
I~I0. AZ Cu Tan mn oTy 

20“ Mediator Dei et hominum, 21“ Non ob hoc mediator est 
guia Deus cum Patre, quia homo Christus, - quia Verbum; maxime 
cum hominibus. Non mediator homo quippe immortale et maxime beatum 
praeter deitatem, non mediator Deus Verbum longe est a mortalibus mi- 


praeter humanitatem. Ecce media- seriis; sed mediator est secundum 
tor: divinitas sine humanitate non quod homo.” De Civ. Dei, IX, 15. 
est mediatrix, humanitas sine divini- For additional Patristic texts see 
tate non est mediatrix, sed inter di- Petavius, De Incarn., XII, 1-4; 


vinitatem solam eét humanitatem Vasquez, Comment. in S. Theol., 
solam mediatrix est humana divinitas III, disp. 83, « 13. 


2 


12 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


They had to meet this logical difficulty: The idea 
of natural mediation essentially implies three distinct ele- 
ments, wiz.: the two extremes God and man, and a 
mediator who must be both God and man, 1. e., God- 
man (6edvOpuros). Christ, being God according to His 
Divine Nature, is identical with the first of these two 
extremes. Consequently, He cannot be a true and nat- 
ural mediator, for it is impossible to conceive Him as 
a go-between between Himself and man. Cfr. Gal. 
III, 20: “A mediator is not of one.” 

The Scholastics retorted that Christ is the mediator 
between God and man not qua Logos, but gua Word 
Incarnate, -2,\ @, as man. City 4 "Pim: Fane ie Ore 
mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” The 
God man Christ Jesus is not only numerically distinct from 
all other men, He is likewise hypostatically distinct from 
the Father and the Holy Ghost, being a different Person 
than either. Hence His mediatorship involves three dis- 
tinct factors: God, man, and Christ. It is true that, 
regarded in His Divine Nature, as God, Christ is the 
mediator between Himself and mankind. But his media- 
tion is not effected by the Godhead as such, it is effected 
solely by His manhood, which is hypostatically united 
with the Second Person of the Trinity. This gives rise 
to seeming paradoxes, e. g.: As man He adores, as God 
He is adored; as man He gives satisfaction, as God he 
receives it; as man He offers ‘sacrifices, as God He 
accepts them. But this two-sidedness does not destroy 
the reality of Christ’s natural and moral mediation. It 
simply constitutes its substratum. To postulate a numer- 
ical distinction between the Divine Nature of Christ and 
the Godhead of the Father and the Holy Ghost, would be 
to base the possibility of the atonement on Tritheism.2? 

22 Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol.; 3a, qu. 20, \atte..2s 


SEC LION 2 


CONGRUITY AND NECESSITY OF THE REDEMPTION 


I. CONGRUITY OF THE REDEMPTION.—Inasmuch as an 
end can be best attained by congruous means, i. e., means 
specially adapted to that particular end, the “ congruous ” 
may be said to be “ morally necessary.” But it is never 
necessary in the strict metaphysical sense of the term. 
Failure to employ a merely congruous means does not 
necessarily frustrate the end to be attained; nor does it 
argue a moral fault. A wise man knows how to attain 
his ends by various means, none of which may be posi- 
tively “incongruous.” It is in this light that we must 
regard certain profound arguments by which Fathers and 
_ theologians have tried to show the congruity of the In- 
carnation for the purpose of Redemption. Here are 
the more notable ones. 


a) God in His exterior operation aims solely 
at the manifestation of His attributes for the pur- 
pose of His own glorification. What more ef- 
fective means could He have chosen for this end 
than the Incarnation? 


In the Incarnation the seemingly impossible was ef- 
fected. The Creator was inseparably united with the 
creature, the Infinite with the finite, omnipotence with 


13 


14 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


mercy; Heaven and earth were locked together, as it 
were, by the bond of the Hypostatic Union. Man is 
a microcosm reflecting the whole created universe. No 
doubt this is what Tertullian had in mind when he wrote: 
“The Son of God was born; I am not ashamed, because 
men must needs be ashamed [of it]. And the Son of 
God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is 
absurd. And after having been buried, He rose again; 
the fact is certain, because it is impossible.’’ 4 

(a) God’s justice and mercy are glorified in the In- 
carnation, because, despite their diametric contrariety, 
they both meet in it, in such manner that either attri- 
bute works itself out to the full extent of its infinity 
without disturbing the other.2 When, moved by infinite 
mercy, the Son of God satisfied infinite justice by expiat- 
ing the sins of mankind on the Cross, “ justice and peace 
kissed ” in very truth? 

(8) God’s love, too, triumphantly manifested itself in 
the Incarnation of the Logos. “God so loved the 
world, as to give his only begotten Son.’’* The mystery 
of the Incarnation gives the lie to Aristotle, who held 
that, owing to the impassable gulf separating man from 
God, anything like “friendship” is impossible between 
them. “Both he that sanctifieth, and they who are 
sanctified, are all of one; for which cause he is not 
ashamed to call them brethren.” ® 

(y) Divine wisdom also reached its climax in this 
sublime mystery. “If any one will diligently consider 
the mystery of the Incarnation,” says St. Thomas, “ he 

1“ Natus est Dei Filius: non 2Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God: His 
pudet, quia pudendum est; est mor- Knowability, Essence, and Attri- 
tuus Dei Filius: prorsus credibile,  butes, pp. 466 sqq., St. Louis 1911. 
quia ineptum est; et sepultus resur- BPS NOONE VG Ee 


rexit; certum est, quia impossibile.’’ 4 John ITI, 16, 
De Carne Christi, c. 5. SiHebs Liar, 


CONGRUITY OF THE REDEMPTION 15 


will find [therein] a profundity of wisdom exceeding 
all human understanding. . . . Hence it is that he who 
piously meditates on this mystery, will constantly dis- 
cover [therein] new and more wonderful aspects.” & 


b) Why did the Second Person of the Most 
Holy Trinity become incarnate, rather than the 
First or the Third? There is a profound reason 
for this. 


We have pointed out in Christology? that nothing in 
the personal traits of the Father or of the Holy Ghost 
would forbid either of these Divine Persons to assume 
human flesh. But there is that in the personal character 
of the Son which makes it more appropriate for Him 
to become incarnate than either the Father or the Holy 
Ghost. It was through the Logos that the universe was 
created ;® and what is more fitting than that it should 
also be repaired by His agency?® Moreover, as the 
Logos alone is “the [perfect] image of God,” !° it was 
highly appropriate that He should restore to its pristine 
purity God’s likeness in men, which had been destroyed 
by sin.** “The Divine Logos Himself came into this 
world,” says St. Athanasius, “in order that, being the 
image of the Father, He might restore man, who was 
created to His image and likeness.” 12 It also befit- 


6“ Si quis autem diligenter incar- 
nationis mysterium consideret, in- 
veniet tantam sapientiae profundita- 
tem, quod omnem humanam cogni- 
tionem excedat.... Unde fit, ut 
bie consideranti semper magis ac 
magis admirabiles rationes huiusmodi 
mysterit manifestentur.’ Contr. 
Gent., IV, 54. 

7 Pohle-Preuss, 


Christology, pp. 
135 Sq. 


8 Cfr.\ John’ I; 3) 
9 Pope St. Leo the Great says: 

- ut, quoniam ipse esi, per quem 
omnia facta sunt et sine quo factum 
est nihil, ... cuius erat conditor, 
etiam esset reformator.’ (Serm, 
645) Migne, Pav EOE Xgl) 

10: Ciriva\ Coral Vyiae 

La Gir Gens (dete 

12 Or. de Incarn. Verbi, 13. 


ce 
° 


16 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


ted the hypostatic character of the Son of God that, 
as the true son of the Virgin Mary, He should become the 
“Son of man,” in order to reconstitute all men “sons 
of God” as by a new birth.* The second of these 
momenta is well brought out by St. Augustine when he 
says: “That men might be born of God, God was first 
born of them. For... He through whom we were 
to be created, was born of God, and He by whom we 
were to be re-created, was born of a woman.’ 4 St. 
John of Damascus emphasizes the first-mentioned point 
when he observes: “The Son of God also became the 
son of man; He took flesh from the Blessed Virgin, but 
did not cease to be the Son of God.” % 


c) It strikes us as an admirable manifestation 
of divine wisdom that the Son of God assumed 
human nature rather than that of the angels. 
Heb. Il, 16: “Nusquam enim angelos appre- 
hendit, sed semen Abrahae apprehendit *— For 
nowhere doth he take hold of the angels: but of 
the seed of Abraham he taketh hold.” 


By assuming flesh, the Son of God wished to recon- 
struct human nature upon its own foundations and to 
propose to man for his imitation a pattern exemplar in 
the “ Following of Christ,”’— neither of which objects 
could have been attained had the Divine Logos assumed 
the nature of an angel. 


13 Cfr. John I, 12; Gal. IV, 4 sq. 

14‘ Ut homines nascerentur ex 
Deo, primo ex ipsis natus est Deus. 
Christus enim... natus ex Deo, 
per quem efficeremur, et natus ex 
femina, per quem reficeremur.’ 
Tract. in Ioa.; 2;°n: ‘1s. 


sit? De 


15 “ Filius Dei etiam filius hominis 
fit, qui ex s. virgine incarnatus est, 
nec tamen a filiali proprietate disces- 
Trinitate, 1.—Cfr. St. 
Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, qu. 3, art. 8. 

16 érihauBaverar, 


CONGRUITY' OF THE REDEMPTION 17. 


One of the most telling reasons why it was more ap- 
propriate for the Son of God to assume the nature of 
man than that of the angels *” is that none but a God. 
man could endow the created universe with the highest 
degree of perfection of which it was capable. By the 
hypostatic incorporation into the Godhead of a nature 
composed of a material body and a spiritual soul, the 
physical universe was linked with the realm of pure 
spirits. “In no other way,” says Lessius, “could the 
whole universe have been so appropriately perfected... 
for by the assumption of man the whole universe was 
after a fashion assumed into and united with the God- 
head.” *® Thus Christ is in very deed both the natural 
and the supernatural keystone of the cosmos, the be- 
ginning and the end of all things, the pivot of the 
universe. Cfr. 1 Cor. II], 22: “Omnia enim vestra 
sunt... vos autem Christi, Christus autem Dei— For 
all things are yours,...and you are Christ’s, and 
Christ is God’s.” 


d) It is a further proof of divine wisdom that 
the Son of God chose to come into this world as 
the child of a virgin rather than as a full-grown 
man. | 


A: sweet infant is more apt to win our affection than 
a mature man. The virgin birth represented the real- 
ization of the last of the four possible modes in which 
a human being can come into existence. Three of these 
had already been realized in Adam, Eve, and their de- 
scendants. Adam was created immediately by God (sine 


17On the possibility of the 18 De Perfect. Moribusque Divinis, 
Logos’ assuming the nature of an XII, 4. 


angel, see Suarez, De Incarn., disp. 
Tas seCts: 2. 


18 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


mare et femina) ; Eve sprang from the male without fe- 
male co-operation (ex mare sine femina) ; their descend- 
ants are propagated by sexual generation (ex mare et 
femina) ; Jesus Christ alone originated from a woman 
without male co-operation (ex femina sine mare). This 
fact guarantees the reality and integrity of our Lord’s 
human nature, as has been shown in Christology.® 

By His incorporation into the race of the “ first 
Adam,’ our Blessed Redeemer became the “ second 
Adam”’*° in a far higher sense than if He had appeared 
on earth in a celestial body. There is a similar an- 
tithesis between Eve and the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 
Christ the male was elevated, ennobled, and consecrated ; 
in Mary, the female. “ He did not despise the male,” says 
St. Augustine, “for he assumed the nature of a man, 
nor the female, for he was born of a woman.” 24 


2. NECESSITY OF THE REDEMPTION.—Neces- 
sity is twofold: absolute or hypothetical. The 
latter may be subdivided into a number of special 
varieties. Hence in treating of the necessity of 
the Redemption we shall have to distinguish 
between several hypotheses. 

a) Wyclif asserted that the Redemption was 
an absolute necessity. This proposition is un- 
tenable.*? | 

19 Pohle-Preuss, Saint 


Christology, pp. Blessed Virgin Mary, cfr. 


41 sqq. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, qu. 1, art. 5- 
20 Cfr. Rom. V, 14 sqq.; 1 Cor. 6—On the whole subject of this 

XV, ae. subdivision cfr. De Lugo, De Myst. 
21° Nec mares fastidivit, quia Incarn., disp. 1, sect. 2; Suarez, De 

marem suscepit; nec feminam, quia Incarn., disp. 3, sect. 3; Chr. Pesch, 

ae temina factus est.” Ep., 3. On  Praelect. Dogmat., Vol. IV, 3rd ed., 

the propriety of Christ’s becom- pp. 209 sqq. 

ing incarnate at the particular 22 Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, En- 


time when He was conceived. by the 


chiridion, n. 607. 


NECESSITY OF THE REDEMPTION 19 


Whatever is absolutely necessary involves the same. 


kind of certainty as that two and two are four. To as- 
cribe such mathematical necessity to the Incarnation 
would be to deny the liberty of the Redemption as well 
as that of the Creation, for the creation of the world was 
an indispensable condition of the Incarnation. Further- 
more, Revelation clearly teaches that the Redemption of 
the human race was in the strictest and most perfect sense 
of the word a work of divine grace, mercy, and love. 
Wyclif is wrong in holding that the Incarnation satisfies 
a legitimate demand of human nature, for in that 
hypothesis reason would be able to demonstrate with 
mathematical certainty the possibility and existence of 
the Hypostatic Union, which we know is not the case. 
So far is the human mind from being able to understand 
this mystery, that it cannot even demonstrate it after it 
has been revealed.?? Hence the Incarnation, if it was at 
all necessary, could be necessary only in an hypothetic 
sense, that is, on some condition or other. What may 
this condition be? . 


b) Raymond Lull, Malebranche, Leibniz, and 
other champions of absolute Optimism contend 
that when God determined to create the universe, 
He of necessity also decreed the Incarnation, be- 
cause it is inconceivable that He should have 
wished to deprive His work of its highest per- 
fection. In other words, the concept of “the 
best possible world” includes the Incarnation. 


This theory, which destroys the liberty of the Creator, 
is refuted in our dogmatic treatise on God the Author 


23 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Christology, pp. 45 sq. 


20 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


of Nature.* Here we merely wish to point out two 
facts: that the Creator Himself, without regard to the 
future Incarnation, described His work as “very 
good,’’*° and that the Incarnation would not be pre- 
eminently a free grace if it corresponded to a strict 
claim of nature. 

The champions of moderate or relative Optimism *¢ 
maintain that the present order, capped by the Incarna- 
tion, represents the “best possible world,’ not because 
the Incarnation was a metaphysical necessity, but because 
it was morally necessary in view of God’s superabundant 
goodness. These writers forget that, while the Incarna- 
tion represents the apogee of divine glorification and the 
highest perfection of the universe, it involves at the same 
time an equally great humiliation and self-abasement (ex- 
inanitio, kévwors) of God’s Majesty, which is inconceivable 
in any other hypothesis except as a free decree of His 
love.?? 


c) The further question arises: Did God owe 
it to fallen man to redeem him by means of the 
Incarnation? The answer is that the restoration 
of the state of grace which man had enjoyed in 
Paradise was just as truly a free gift of God’s 
mercy and benevolence as that state itself, nay, 
even more so. 


That God was under no obligation to redeem His 
creatures is evidenced by the fate of the fallen angels. 
Cfr. also Wisd. XII, 12: “ Quis tibi imputabit, si peri- 


24 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God the Au- Dei, disp. 9), Sylvester Maurus (De 
thor of Nature and the Supernatural, Deo, disp. 51), and Viva (De In- 
PP. 45 sq. Carn, Qu. 2,-art.” 2). 

25 Gen. I, 31. 27 Cfr. De Lugo, De Myst. Incarn., 

26 FE. g., Didacus Ruiz (De Volunt. disp. 2, sect. 1-2. 


NECESSITY OF THE REDEMPTION 21 


erint nationes, quas tu fecisti? — Who shall accuse thee, — 
if the nations perish, which thou hast made?” St._ 
Augustine may have held harsh and exaggerated views 
on the subject of predestination, but he was certainly 
right when he said: ‘The entire mass incurred pen- 
alty; and if the deserved punishment of condemnation 
were rendered to all, it would without doubt be right- 
eously rendered.” *8 

To say that the Incarnation, though the result of a free 
decree, was the only means God had of redeeming the 
human race,2® would be unduly to restrict the divine attri- 
butes of mercy, wisdom, and omnipotence in their essence 
and scope.*° God might, without injustice, have left the 
human race to perish in its iniquity, and there is nothing 
repugnant either to faith or right reason in the assump- 
tion that He might, with or without the intervention of 
some appointed saint or angel as representative of the 


28 “ Universa massa poenas dabat, 
et si omnibus damnationis supplicium 
redderetur, non iniuste procul dubio 
redderetur.” (De Nat. et Grat., c. 
5.) 

29 This opinion was held by St. 
Anselm (Cur Deus Homo? I, 4; HI, 
12), Richard of St. Victor (De In- 
carn. Verbi, c. 8), and Tournely (De 
Deo, qu. 19, art. 1; De Incarn., qu. 
4 sqq.). It is absolutely without 
Scriptural warrant. De Lugo says of 
it: ‘‘ Mili videtur satis ad errorem 
accedere, eo quod, licet non omnino 
clare, fere tamen clare ex Scriptura 
colligatur oppositum, accedente prae- 
sertim expositione communi Pa- 
trum.” (Op. cit., disp. 2, sect.. 1, 
n. 6). Lately an attempt has been 
made to interpret St. Anselm’s 
opinion more mildly (Dérholt, Die 
Lehre von der Genugtuung Christi, 
pp. 201 sqq., Paderborn 1891). 
For a criticism of MDorholt’s  po- 


sition see Stentrup in the Zeit- 
schrift fiir katholische Theologie, 
pp. 653 sqq., Innsbruck 1892. B. 
Funke, Grundlagen und Voraussete- 
ungen der Satisfaktionstheorie des 
hl. Anselm, Miinster 1903, furnishes 
a notable contribution in support of 
Dorholt’s thesis. Cfr. also L. Hein- 
richs, Genugtuungstheorie des hl. 
Anselmus, Paderborn 1909; and 
Pohle-Preuss, God: His Knowability, 
Essence, and Attributes, pp. 462 
sqd. 

30 “ Sunt stultt qui dicunt: Non 
poterat aliter sapientia Det homines 
liberare, nisi susciperet hominem et 
nasceretur de femina.... Quibus 
dicimus: Poterat omnino, sed st 
aliter faceret, similiter vestrae stulti- 
tiae displiceret.”’ (St. Augustine, 
De Agone Christi, XI, 12). For 
other Patristic texts consult Peta- 
vius, De Incarn., II, 13. 


22 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


whole race, have restored penitent sinners to His grace 
without demanding any equivalent whatever, or on the 
basis of an inadequate satisfaction. Hence, according to 
Suarez,*? the universal teaching of theologians that God 
in His omnipotence might have repaired human nature 
in a variety of other ways,** is so certain that “it cannot 
be denied without temerity and danger to the faith.” 


d) The Incarnation can be conceived as a 
necessary postulate of the Redemption only on the 
assumption that God exacted adequate (i. e., in- 
finite) satisfaction for the sins of men. In that 
hypothesis manifestly none but a natural media- 
tor, that is to say, a Godman, was able to give the 
satisfaction demanded. 


Sin involves a sort of infinite guilt and cannot be 
adequately atoned for except by an infinite satisfac- 
tion.** The Fathers held that not even the human 
nature of Christ, as such, considered apart from the 
Hypostatic Union, could make adequate satisfaction for 
our sins; much less, of course, was any other creature, 
human or angelic, equal to the task. For, in the words 
of St. Augustine, “we could not be redeemed, even by 
the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ 
Jesus, if He were not also God.” * 

Though this was the most difficult mode of redemption, 


81 De Incarn., disp. 4, sect. 2, n. 3. 

32 Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, 
qu. 1, art. 2: “Deus per suam 
omnipotentem virtutem poterat hu- 
manam naturam multis aliis modis 
reparare.”’ 

83 Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, 
qu.°2, ad 2. 


34 St. Augustine, Enchir., c. 108: 
* Neque per ipsum liberaremur unum 
mediatorem Dei et hominum, homi- 
nem lIesum Christum, nisi esset et 
Deus.’— For additional texts from 
the writings of the Fathers consult 
Vasquez, disp. 4, c. 3; Thomassin, 
De Incarn., I, 4. 


> , 
—-" an oo 
ee ee ee ee 


NECESSITY OF THE REDEMPTION) i) 28 


it was the one actually chosen by God. The Incarnation 
of the Logos satisfied the full rigor of His justice, but it 
also gave free play to His boundless love. The fact that 
the atonement was decreed from eternity explains such 
Scriptural phrases as John III, 14: “ E-raltari oportet * 
Filium hominis — The Son of man must be lifted up” 
(as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert), and Luke 
XXIV, 26: “Nonne haec oportuit pati*® Christum — 
Was it not necessary for Christ to have suffered these 
thingsie7) °* 


35 vWobjvar Set, Praelectiones Dogmaticae, Vol. IV, 
36 eu wadeiy, grd ed., pp. 201 sqq., Friburgi 1909; 
37 Cfr. Heb. IX, 22,— On the sub- De Lugo, De Myst. Incarn., disp. 2, 
ject of the foregoing paragraphs con- 3, 53; Billuart, De Incarn., diss. 3, 


sult J. Kleutgen, Theologie der Vor- art. 2; B. Dorholt, Die Lehre von 
zeit, Vol. III, pp. 336 sqq., 381 sqq., der Genugtuung Christi, pp, 171 SQ, 
430 sqq., Minster 1870; Chr..Pesch, Paderborn 1891. 


SECON 3 


PREDESTINATION OF THE REDEEMER 


I, STATE OF THE QuEsTION.—Would the Son 
of God have appeared in the flesh if Adam had not 
sinned? In other words, was the Incarnation 
absolutely predetermined? This is a most inter- 
esting question, and the famous theological con- 
troversy to which it gave rise, throws so clear a 
light on the dogma of the Redemption and the 
sublime dignity of the Redeemer, that we must 
give an account of it here. 

The underlying problem may be briefly stated 
as follows: The Incarnation was dictated by 
two principal motives, namely, (1) compassion 
for the misery of mankind, and (2) the glorifi- 
cation of God and His Christ.* Which of these 
motives outweighed the other? This question 
must receive an answer before we can determine 
whether the fall of Adam was an indispensable © 
condition of the Incarnation, or whether the Di- 
vine Logos assumed human flesh irrespective of 
the existence or non-existence of a sinful race of 

1Cfr. John XVII, 4 sqq.; 2 Thess. I, rz. 
24 


PREDESTINATION OF THE REDEEMER 25 


men. The former view is held by the Thomists, ty 
the latter by the Scotists. 


The Scotists conceive the divine decrees appertaining 
to the Redemption in the following order. First of al! 
comes the absolute predistination of Christ and His 
divine kingdom, consisting of angels and men. In the 
second place, the permission of the sin of Adam; and in 
the third place, the mission of Christ in His capacity of 
passible Redeemer. 

The Thomists, on the other hand, hold that God created 
the universe without regard to Christ; that He subse- 
quently decreed to permit sin, and lastly determined on 
the Incarnation of the Logos for the purpose of redeem- 
ing the human race. 

As may be seen from this enumeration, the Scotists 
put the Incarnation first, while the Thomists put it last. 
From the Scotist point of view God’s predominant mo- 
tive in decreeing the Incarnation was the dignity and 
glorification of Christ. The universe was created for 
Christ’s sake. The Thomists, on the other hand, ascribe 
the Incarnation of the Logos primarily to God’s mercy. 
In the Scotist hypothesis the Incarnation is altogether 
independent of the Fall; the Thomists regard the latter 
as an indispensable condition of the former. 

Against the Scotist view there lies this objection: If 
Christ was not predestined to atone for the sins of men, 
why did He appear on earth as a passible Redeemer rather 
than, as we should have every reason to expect, in the 
capacity of an impassible, glorified Godman? The 
Scotists meet this difficulty by saying that the first and 
absolute decree touching the Incarnation was modified in 
view of the Fall; that after the Fall, Christ, who originally 


26 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


was to have appeared among men as homo gloriosus, de- 
cided to assume human flesh and become homo passibilis. 

In general terms the two theories may be characterized 
as follows: The Scotistic theory is inspired by a tran- 
scendent idealism, whereas the Thomist view conforms 
to the facts as we know them. To enable the reader to 
form his own estimate we will briefly state the leading 
arguments adduced by both schools. 


2. THE TuHomistic THEoryY.—That the Fall 
of Adam was the chief motive which prompted 
God to decree the Incarnation, is held by all 
Thomists,* and also by a large number of theo- 
logians belonging to other schools, e. g., Gregory 
of Valentia, Vasquez, Petavius, Cardinals To- 
letus and De Lugo, and even by the “ideal” 
Lessius.° Among modern theologians this the- 
ory has been espoused by Kleutgen,* Stentrup,° 
Tepe,° and many others. 


Toletus and Petavius absolutely reject the Scotist 
hypothesis. Chr. Pesch?7 and L. Janssens® prefer the 
Thomist view, but admit the other as probable. In this 
they follow St. Thomas himself ® and St. Bonaventure.?° 
The Angelic Doctor both in his Commentary on the Liber 
Sententiarum and in the Summa Theologica expresses 


2Cfr. Billuart, De Incarn., diss. 
Rar hg ellie 

3 De Praedest. Christi (Opusce., t. 
II, pp. 483 sqq., Paris 1878). 

4 Theologie der Vorzeit, Vol. III, 
Pp. 393 sqq. 

5 Soteriologia, thes. 2. 

6 Instit, Theol., Vol. III, pp. 663 
sqq., Paris 1896, 


7 Praelect. Dogm., Vol. IV, 3d ed., 
pp. 216 sqq. 

8 De Deo-Homine, II; Soteriologia, 
pp. 44 sqq. 

9 Comment. 


in Quatuor Libros 


ASlent. WAT dist. 1, ue im art.) 3. 


10 Comment. in Quatuor Libros 
Sent., III, dist. 1, art. 2, qu. 2. 


THE THOMISTIC THEORY 27 


himself with cautious reserve. St. Bonaventure says: 
“He who was made flesh for us alone knows which of 
the two theories is the better. Which is to be preferred 
it is difficult to say, because both are Catholic and 
sustained by Catholic authors.” ™ 

The Thomistic conception is based upon arguments 
which, though not cogent, are perfectly sound. 


a) St. Thomas himself argues as follows: 
“Some claim that the Son of God would have 
assumed human flesh even if man had not sinned. 
Others assert the contrary, and their teaching 
seems to have a greater claim to our assent. 
The reason is this. Whatever proceeds solely 
from the Divine Will, transcending every exi- 
gency of nature, must remain unknown to us, 
except it-be revealed: by ‘Sacred: scripttre.....', 
Now, Sacred Scripture invariably assigns the sin 
of Adam as the motive of the Incarnation. It is 
more befitting, therefore, to regard the Incarna- 
tion as ordained by God for the cure of sin, so 
that if there had been no sin there would have 
been no Incarnation.” ?” 


As a matter of fact, whenever Sacred Scripture speaks 
of the motive of the Incarnation, it invariably points to 


TEER com 

Tone He Ole 3a; Gh Tn art.. or 
“Quidam dicunt, quod etiamsi homo 
non peccasset, Det Filius incarnatus 
fuisset. Alii vero contrarium as- 
serunt, quorum assertiont magis as- 
sentiendum videtur. Ea enim quae 
a sola Det voluntate proveniunt 
supra omne debitum naturae, nobis 


3 


innotescere non possunt, nisi qua- 
tenus in S. Scriptura traduntur.... 
Unde quum in S. Scriptura ubique 
incarnationis ratio ex peccato primi 
hominis assignetur, convenientius 
dicitur, incarnationem opus ordina- 
tum esse a Deo in remedium contra 
peccatum, ita quod peccato non exi- 
stente incarnatio non fuisset.” 


28 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


the sin of Adam. It is because He was sent to redeem 
the fallen race of men that Christ received the name of 
“Jesus,” 7. e., Saviour or Redeemer (salvator, owrnp). 
Cir. Matth. I, 21: “ Et vocabis nomen eius Iesum; ipse 
enim *? saluum faciet populum suum a peccatis eorum 
— And thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save 
his people from their sins.”?* Jesus Himself never even 
hints. at any other motive. Cfr. Luke XX, to: 
“Venit enim Filius hominis quaerere et salvum facere, 
quod perierat — For the Son of man is come to seek 
and to save that which was lost.” It seems perfectly 
legitimate to conclude, therefore, that the redemption of 
man was the main motive which prompted God to send 
His Son. Had there been a higher and more com- 
prehensive motive, it would be strange to find no hint 
of it in the Scriptures. 

The weight of this argument must not, however, be 
overrated. For, in the first place, the texts upon which 
it is based are. purely affirmative, but not exclusive, so 
that the argument based upon them is at bottom merely 
one ex silentio. And, secondly, the Scriptural passages 
in question all refer to the actual order of salvation, 
not to its hidden background. Although the Incarna- 
tion and the Redemption are causally correlated, Sacred 
Scripture does not define the nature of their mutual 
relationship, and tells us nothing at all concerning the 
question whether the Incarnation is subordinate to the 
Redemption, or vice versa. 


b) Owing to their larger knowledge of the 
writings of the Fathers, modern theologians are 


13 ydp, Rom. TD, -ess" GAL. Ve as v7 Lam, 
14 Similarly Matth. IX, 13; Mark I, 15; 1 John III, s. 
tL, 175. Luke, fjeg7;.Jehn T1h-%17% 


THE: THOMISTIG: THEORY 20. 


able to construct a far more convincing Patristic 
argument than was possible in the time of St. 
Thomas. Holy Scripture merely intimates by its 
silence that there would have been no Incarnation 
if Adam had not sinned. The Fathers enunciate 
this proposition in explicit terms. 


“T am persuaded,” writes Cardinal Toletus, “ that, had 
the old Scholastic doctors been acquainted with the many 
Patristic testimonials which I now adduce, they would 
have admitted that the contrary view is absolutely de- 
void of probability.” ?* We will cite a few of these tes- 
timonials. St. Athanasius says: “The assumption of 
human nature [on the part of the Logos] presupposes a 
necessity, apart from which He would not have put on 
flesh.’ *® St. Ambrose asks: ‘ What was the cause of 
the Incarnation if not this, that the flesh which had sinned 
by itself, should by itself be redeemed?” 27 And St. 
Augustine declares that “the Lord Jesus Christ came in 
the flesh ... for no other reason than ... to save, 
liberate, redeem, and enlighten [those who are engrafted 
members of His body].”+8 We may also refer to the 
Creed: “Who for us men and for our salvation de- 
scended from Heaven,” and to the Easter hymn: “O 
happy fault, which deserved to have so great and glorious 
a Redeemer!” 

To sum up the argument: Tradition, so far as we 


152". S. Theol.; ht. per se redimeretur?’’? De Incarn., 


16 Or. contr. Arian., 2, 54. Sim- 
ilarly Gregory of Nazianzus (Or., 
30, n. 3) and Cyril of Alexandria 
(Thesaur., V, 8). 

17 “ Quae erat causa incarnationis, 
nist ut caro, quae per se peccaverat, 


ce) 6; n. 56. 

18 De Pecc. Mer. et Rem., I, 26, 
39.-— Additional Patristic texts in 
Lessius, De Praedest. Christi, sect. 
I, n. 5; Stentrup, Soteriologia, thes.. 
t sq. Cfr. Petavius, De Incarn., 
II, 77. 


30 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


are able to ascertain it, is against the absolute predesti- 
nation of Christ, but holds that,if man had not sinned, 
the Son of God would never have become incarnate. 

To escape this argument, the Scotists urge their above- 
mentioned distinction between “ Christus gloriosus” and 
“ Christus passibilis”’ God’s original decree concerning 
the Incarnation, they say, was from all eternity mod- 
ified by the Fall of man, which necessitated a pas- 
sible redeemer; and it is to this particular aspect of 
the Incarnation alone that the Patristic texts apply; at 
least it is possible so to interpret them. But even if 
they could be interpreted in the wider sense in which they 
are understood by the Thomists, we should still be dealing 
with a mere theory, which no rule of faith constrains us 
to adopt. In support of this view the Scotist theologians 
point to the modification which the Patristic theory of 
“satisfaction”? has experienced in course of time with- 
out detriment to its substance. 


3. Tue Scotistic THEory.—If the question 
at issue had to be decided purely on the author- 
ity of theologians, we should be unable to arrive 
at a unanimous decision, so evenly is authority 
balanced against authority. The Scotistic theory 
originated with Abbot Rupert of Deutz. It 
was adopted by Albert the Great ®° and developed 
by Duns Scotus,”* in whose school it eventually 
obtained the upper hand.” It has also found 
many ardent defenders outside the Scotistic 


19 De Gloria et Hon. Filii Hominis 21 Comment. in Quatuor Libros 
Libri XIII; De Trinit., III, 20. ° Sent., LI, .dist.-7,,. qu. 3: 
20 Comment. in Quatuor Libros 22 Cfr. Mastrius, Disp. Theol., 


Sent., III, dist..20, art. 4. disp. 4, qu. 1. 


LHe: SCORISLIC sTARORY Bie 


camp, among them Ambrose Catharinus,?*? Ysam- 
bert, St. Bernard of Siena, St. Francis de Sales,?4 
and especially Suarez.?® For a while its defend- 
ers were few, but of late the theory is again com- 
ing into favor. Among its modern champions we 
may mention: Faber, Gay, Bougaud, Schell, 
Fr, Risi, and Du Cappucce.?® 

The arguments for the Scotist position are un- 
deniably strong. 

a) Their Scriptural basis is the oft-repeated 
statement of St. Paul that the Incarnation of 
Christ was pre-ordained by an eternal and abso- 
lute divine decree without regard to the Fall. 


The Apostle declares that all things are by Christ and 
for Christ, 7. e., tend towards Him as their final end and 
object. Cfr. Heb. II, 10: “Propter quem omnia et 
per quem omma— For whom are all things and by 
whom are all things.”?" Col. I, 16 sqq.: “ Omnia per 
ipsum et im ipso®® creata sunt... et ipse est ante 
omnes? et omnia in ipso herr et ipse est caput 
corporis Ecclesiae, qui est principium,®® primogenitus ex 
mortuis, ut sit in omnibus ipse primatum tenens ** —In 
him were all things created .. . and he is before all, 
and by him all things consist. And he is the head of 
the body, the church, who is the beginning, the first- 
born from the dead; that in all things he may hold the 


28 De Praedestin. Eximia Christi, 27 6 by Ta mavTa Kat dv od Ta 
Lugduni 1542. TAVTa, : 

24 De Amour de Dieu, II, 4. 28 els avror, 

25 De Incarn., disp. 5. 29 rod wavTwr, 

26“ Primauté de Notre-Seigneur 30 doy, 
Jésus-Christ,” in the Etudes Fran- 31 rpwrevuwn, 


ciscaines, 1890, 1900, 


32 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


primacy.” If Christ holds first place in the divine 
economy of the universe, and the world of angels and men 
was reserved to the last, so runs the Scotist argument, the 
Incarnation cannot have been subordinate to the Creation 
and Redemption, but, on the contrary, must rank far 
above it. Without Christ there could have been no cre- 
ation. Hence Christ is “before all,” “the first-born of 
every creature.” °? He is the centre and pivot of the uni- 
verse, not in consequence of the Fall, but absolutely and 
from all eternity. He has not been added to the created 
universe by accident, but rules it as apwrevwv, and is the 
Alpha and Omega of all things from the beginning.®* 


b) Though this theory cannot be strictly dem- 
onstrated from the writings of the Fathers, yet 
the Patristic interpretation of several passages in 
the Sapiential Books of the Old Testament seems 
to lend it weight. The fact that the Fathers 
were unable to gauge the full bearing of their 
interpretation does not forbid us to push to their 
legitimate conclusions the principles which they 
asserted. 


We have pointed out in our treatise on the Trinity *4 
that certain of the Fathers applied Proverbs VIII, 22: 
“The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, 
before he made anything from the beginning,” *° to the 
temporal birth of the Logos, that is, the Incarnation. 
This can only mean that Christ was predestined to be 


$2 Col. 1; 153 ctr. Rom.) VIII; 29. 84 Pohle-Preuss, The Divine Trin- 
83 The objections urged against ity, p. 157. 
this interpretation may be read in 35 “ Dominus possedit (€xrice) me 


De Lugo, De Myst. Incarn., disp. in initio viarum suarum, antequam 
Fy secty 2s quidquam faceret a principio.” 


=- 


THE SCOPISTIG* THEORY ahe 


the First and that all things were created for His sake.3* - 

On the strength of Gen. II, 24 and Eph. V, 31 sqq. 
several Fathers held that the nature of matrimony, as an 
image of “Christ’s union with His Church,” was re- 
vealed to Adam in Paradise. If this be true, our Lord’s 
appearance on earth cannot be conceived as conditioned 
by the Fall. “Even if man had not sinned, but 
had remained in the state of innocence,” says St. Augus- 
tine,*” “ matrimony would still be the symbol of Christ’s 
union with His Church.” * 


When it comes to theological arguments, the 
Scotists can allege in their favor all the reasons 
which we have given above for the congruity of 
the Incarnation as such, especially the fact that, 
in the words of Lessius,®® “by the assumption of 
man the whole universe was, after a fashion, 
assumed into and united with the Godhead.” 
Strangely enough, Lessius subsequently under- 
mined his own position by saying: “If any 
created nature was to be assumed primarily for 
the sake of perfecting the universe, it would 
have been the most perfect, 7. e., that of the 
highest angel.’’*° This conclusion does not fol- 
low. Unlike man, an angel is not a “microcosm.” 
Besides, there is something sublime and over- 


36 Cfr. Suarez, De Incarn., disp. 38 For the Thomist reply to this 
Se sects: 2. argument see Lessius, De Praedest. 
87“ Coniugium etiam in statu in- Christi, n. 23 sqq. 
nocentiae, si homo non peccasset, 39 De Perfect. Mor. Div., XII, 4. 
futurum sacramentum coniunctionis 40 De Praedest. Christi, n. 9. 


Christi cum Ecclesia.” (De Nupt. 
et Concup., I, 21.) 3 


phase. oom 


34 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


whelming in the thought that, as Scotism con- 
sistently teaches, not only all men but all angels, 
not only fallen and sinful man, but likewise man 
as constituted in Paradise, owe their original 
sanctity entirely to the merits of an absolutely 
predestined Redeemer; that all grace radiates 
from Christ, the “sun of justice,” who sanctifies 
angels and men and disperses the shadows of 
death. 

Perhaps the weightiest argument adduced for | 
the Scotist position is the one developed by Su- 
arez: The end cannot be inferior to the means 
devised for its attainment. This would be the 
case if the Incarnation merely served the pur- 
pose of the Redemption. No sensible hunter 
would shoot a cannon to bring down a sparrow. 
Christ is not only the crown of the created unt- 
verse, He is also the climax of divine glorification. 
Without Him the universe would be meaningless. 
He who is highest and most perfect in the order of 
being, must also be first in the plan of creation, 
and the fulness of divine glory cannot have been 
dependent on the accident of the Fall. 

The Scotistic theory recommends itself by its 
sublimity. It groups angels and men around 
the Godman as the center of the universe, the 
highest and final revelation, the beginning and 
end of all things.** 7 


41 Cfr. Jos. Pohle in the Katholik, Mainz 1886, II, 461 sqq., 578 sqq. 


CHAPTER I 


THE REDEMPTION OF THE HUMAN RACE THROUGH 
CHRIST’S VICARIOUS ATONEMENT 


SECTION 1 


THE REALITY OF CHRIST'S VICARIOUS ATONEMENT 


ARTICLE 1 


VICARIOUS ATONEMENT DEFINED 


This Chapter deals with the concrete fact of Christ’s 
vicarious atonement (satisfactio vicaria) rather than with 
the abstract notion of Redemption, which even heretics 
do not entirely deny ; hence we must be careful to define 
our terms. 


I. EXPLANATION OF~ THE TERM “ATONE- 
MENT.”—a) By atonement we understand the 
reparation of any wrong or injury, either ma- 
terial (damnum) or moral (offensa, imiuria). 
Material injury demands restitution; moral in- 
jury can be repaired only by satisfaction or atone- 
ment in the strict sense of the term. The Roman 
Catechism defines “satisfaction” as ‘nothing else 
than compensation for an injury offered to an- 
other.” Satisfaction in the sense of discharging 

ASE 


36 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


a penance enjoined in confession will be treated 
in connection with the Sacrament of Penance. 

b) Atonement, in the sense in which the term 
is used in Soteriology, presupposes an offence 
committed against, or an injury done to, God. 
It is for our sins that God demands satisfaction. 
Sin and satisfaction are consequently correlative 
terms, or, to put it more accurately, they are an- 
titheses clamoring for reconciliation. 

The concept of sin contains a twofold element: 
guilt (reatus culpae) and punishability (reatus — 
poenae). Guilt and punishability are insepara- 
ble. Their gravity depends partly on the dignity 
of the person offended (gravitas formalis) and 
partly on the character of the offence committed 
(gravitas materialis). God is infinite in dig- 
nity and majesty; therefore every grievous sin, 
morally considered, involves an infinite offence. 
“A sin committed against God,” says St. Thomas, 
“partakes in a manner of infinity, through its re- 
lation to the infinite majesty of God; for an of- 
fence is the more serious, ie greater the person 
offended.” 

Considered as a moral delinquency on the part 
of man, sin is a merely finite evil. In respect of 
God, however, it isinfinite. “Jniwria est in iniuri- 
ato.” This applies, of course, only to mortal sin, 
which seriously disturbs the sinner’s relation to 


145, “Lheol,,-3a, qu. 1; art; 2, ad 2. 


VICARIOUS ATONEMENT 1 BY 


God. This relation, if justice be given free - 
scope, cannot be restored except by means of ade- 
quate satisfaction (emptio, redemptio). 

c) Grievous sin, as we have said, involves an 
infinite offence, for which no creature, least of 
all the sinner himself, can render adequate satis- 
faction. Adequate in this case means infinite 
satisfaction, and infinite satisfaction can be 
given only by one who is infinite in dignity. 
Hence none but a Godman could redeem the hu- 
man race. Hence also the necessity of a vica- 
rious atonement. 

2. DEFINITION OF “VICARIOUS ATONEMENT.” 
—The notion of vicariatio does not imply that he 
who acts as substitute or representative for an- 
other takes upon himself the other’s guilt or sin 
as such. No one can be the bearer or subject 
of another’s sins. In this erroneous sense vicar- 
ious atonement involves a contradiction, because 
no mediator can give satisfaction for another’s 
sins unless he is himself sinless. Vicarious atone- 
ment, therefore, can only mean the voluntary as- 
sumption of a punishment due to sin,— not in- 
deed the reatus poene, which implies real guilt, 
but the penance imposed by God. In other words, 
the Godman renders infinite satisfaction in our 
stead, and this satisfaction by its objective worth 
counterbalances our infinite offence and is ac- 


38 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


cepted by God as though it were given by our- 
selves, 

To illustrate the case by an analogy. The 
human race is like an insolvent merchant. Christ 
voluntarily assumes our obligations and is com- 
pelled to pay the whole debt. The sum of this 
debt is His Precious Blood. (1 Pet. I, 18 sq.) 

3. OBJECTIONS REFUTED.—The Socinians, and 
modern Rationalists generally, reject the Cath- 
olic dogma of Christ’s vicarious atonement on the 
pretext that it involves manifest contradictions, 
(a) with regard to God, (b) with regard to 
Christ, and (c) with regard to man. We will 
briefly examine these alleged contradictions. 


a) The doctrine of the atonement is held to be con- 
tradictory in respect of God for the reason that forgive- 
ness of sins is sometimes attributed to pure mercy and 
sometimes to strict justice, whereas these two attributes - 
are mutually exclusive. 

If the simultaneous manifestation of God’s infinite 
mercy and justice really involved an intrinsic contradic- 
tion, St. Paul would have been the first to incur this 
charge, for he says in his Epistle to the Romans: “ You 
are justified freely by his grace,’ through the redemp- 
tion * that is in Christ Jesus.”* In exacting satisfaction 
for our sins from His own Son instead of us poor sin- 
ners, God exercised in an eminent manner both His 
mercy and His justice. There is no contradiction in- 
volved in this proposition. This would be the case only 
if the sinner were held to give adequate satisfaction in 


2 dwpeay TH aVTOU xdpiTL, 3 Oca THS amoduTpwoEws. 4 Rom. III, 24. 


VICARIOUS ATONEMENT 39 


person and his performance subsequently stamped as a 
grace. Holy Scripture is perfectly consistent in teach- 
ing, on the one hand, that “God so loved the world as 
to give his only-begotten Son,’”’® and, on the other, thai; 
“by sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, 
and of sin, [God] hath condemned sin in the flesh.” ® 
b) The doctrine of the atonement is declared to be 
contradictory for the further reason that it involves the 
punishment of an innocent person in lieu of the guilty 
criminal. It is downright murder, however disguised, 
for God to exact the blood of His own guiltless Son in 
expiation for the sins of others, say the Rationalists. 
God would indeed be unjust had He imposed the guilt 
and punishment of others upon His innocent Son as 
though He were the guilty criminal. But this is by no 
means the teaching of the Church. Not having per- 
-sonally sinned, Christ could not be punished as a sin- 
ner. Hence His death was not a ptinishment in the 
proper sense of the word, but merely a_ satisfactio 
laboriosa. Furthermore, it was not imposed on Him 
against His will. He Himself declares: “I lay down 
my life for my sheep. . . . I lay it down of myself,’ and I 
have power to lay it down: and I have power to take it up 
again.” ® Volentinon fit iniuria (No wrong arises to 
one who consents). Hence the atonement cannot be 
said to involve a violation of commutative justice. Nor 
does it run counter to distributive justice, for Christ’s 
dolorous passion and death, besides redounding to the ad- 
vantage of the human race, also brought Him personal 
reward and glory. Cir. Luke XXIV, 26: “ Ought not 


5 John III, 16. immutability of God, is discussed 
6 Rom. VIII, 3.—Cfr. Pohle- in the appendix to this volume, infra, 
Preuss, God: His Knowability, Es- pp. 165 sq. 
sence, and Attributes, pp. 466 sqq.— Tam’ éuavrov. 
Another objection, based on the 8 John X, 15, 18, 


40 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into 
his glory?” 

c) In regard to man, the doctrine of the atonement 
is denounced as repugnant on the score that one 
who is guilty of a crime should, as a point of honor, 
give the necessary satisfaction himself, and not shift 
this painful duty to another. Our Rationalist adver- 
saries add that the idea of a man’s appropriating to 
himself the fruits of another’s labor is preposterous. 
They overlook the fact that man was absolutely unable 
to render adequate satisfaction for sin. God manifested 
His infinite love and mercy precisely in deigning to accept 
a vicarious atonement. It cannot be proved that this 
involves an injustice. The objection will lose much 
of its force if we take into consideration the fact that 
Christ represented the human race in the order of grace 
in much the same manner in which Adam had vicari- 
ously represented it upon the occasion of the Fall. Hence 
the Scriptural antithesis between the “ first Adam” and 
the “second Adam.” Christ is no stranger to us; He is 
“bone of our bone,” our “ brother ”’ as well as our spir- 
itual head. His merits constitute as it were a family 
heirloom, in which each of us has a share. 

The privilege of participating in the merits of Christ’s 
vicarious atonement does not relieve us of the duty of 
personally atoning for our sins. That Christ has ren- 
dered adequate satisfaction for the sins of the whole 
race, does not mean that each individual human being is 
eo ipso subjectively redeemed. This is the teaching of 
“orthodox” Lutheranism, not of the Catholic Church. 
We Catholics believe that the individual sinner must feel 
sorry for his sins, confess them, and render satisfaction 
for them,— though, of course, no satisfaction can be of 


THE .DOGMA PROVED 41 


any avail except it is based on the merits of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. 


ARE ICEi 2 


THE DOGMA OF CHRIST’S VICARIOUS ATONEMENT PROVED 
FROM REVELATION. 


I, VARIoUS HERESIES AND THE TEACHING OF 
THE CuurcH.—The heretical opinions that have 
arisen in course of time with regard to the dogma 
of Christ’s vicarious atonement owe their in- 
Spiration either to Rationalism or to Pantheism. 
The Rationalist error that the idea of individual 
liberty absolutely excludes original sin, found 
its embodiment in Pelagianism and Socinianism, 
two heretical systems which, though not con- 
temporaneous, agreed in denying original sin and 
the atonement. Pantheism, which merges all 
individuals into one Absolute Being and regards 
sin as a function of the Godhead, gave birth to 
Gnosticism and modern Theosophy. 


a) All these heresies are based on a radically wrong 
conception of the nature of sin. 


a) Pelagianism rests on the fundamental 


9Cfr. Conc. Trident., Sess. XIV, 
cap. 8 (Denzinger-Bannwart, En- 
chiridion, n. 904). An_ excellent 
treatise on the philosophical aspects 
of the atonement is G. A. Pell’s 
Das Dogma von der Siinde und Er- 
losung im Lichte der Vernunft, Rat- 
isbon 1886. Edw. von Hartmann’s 


fallacy 


specious objections (see that writer’s 
book, Die Krisis des Christentums 
in der modernen Theologie, pp. 10 
sqq., Berlin 1882) are effectively 
refuted by B. Dorholt, Die Lehre 
von der Genugtuung Christi, pp. 
160 sqq.. Paderborn 1891. 


42 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


that sin is essentially the free act-of an individual and 
cannot. be conceived as moral guilt incurred by propa- 
gation (original sin). In consequence of this basic error, 
the Pelagians wrongly held that the grace of Christ has 
for its object not the redemption of the whole human race 
by the effacement of an inherited sin of nature, but the 
setting up of an ideal or pattern of virtue in accordance 
with which the individual is obliged to regulate his per- 
sonal conduct. Christ gave us “a good example” to 
counteract the “bad example” set by Adam. Pelagian- 
ism credited the sinner with sufficient strength to arise 
after falling, nay to attain to a state of perfect sinless- 
ness* without supernatural aid, and hence denied the ne- 
cessity of grace and unduly exaggerated the moral ca- 
pacity of human nature.? . 

The soteriological consequences implied in Pelagius’ 
system were expressly drawn by Socinianism. This her- 
esy originated towards the close of the sixteenth century 
by way of a reaction against “ orthodox ”’ Protestantism. 
Its founders were Laelius Socinus and his nephew 
Faustus, both natives of Siena, Italy. Faustus Socinus 
(1539-1604) systematized and developed the teachings 
of his uncle in several works: De Christo Servatore, De 
Officio Christi, and Brevis Discursus de Ratione Salutis 


1 Impeccantia, dvauaprnola, 

2Cfr. Blunt’s Dictionary of Sects, 
Heresies, Ecclesiastical Parties, and 
Schools of Religious Thought, pp. 
415 saqq., New Impression, London 
1903; -also,, the Preface to -P, 
Holmes’ translation of The Anti- 
Pelagian Works of Saint Augustine, 
Vol. I, pp. i sqq., Edinburgh 1872. 
St. Augustine treats at length of 
Pelagianism in the following books: 
De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia, Contra 
Duas Epistolas Pelagianorum, En- 
chiridion, De Gratia et Libero Ar- 


bitrio, De Correptione et Gratia, De 
Praedestinatione Sanctorum, De 
Dono Perseverantiae, Contra Iulia- 
num Pelagianum, De Gestis Pelagit, 
De Octo Dulcitii Quaestionibus, Com- 
ment. in Psalmos, Serm., x and xiv, 
and in his Epistles to Paulinus, Op- 
tatus, Sextus, Celestine, Vitalis, and 
Valentine. Cfr. also the Varia 
Scripta et Monumenta ad Pelagia- 
norum Historiam Pertin--tia at the 
close of Vol. X of the Benedictine 
edition of St. Augustine’s works, 


GNOSTICISM 43 


Nostrae ex Sermonibus Fausti Socini2 Socinianism — 
denied the Trinity, the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the 
necessity of supernatural grace, and the dogma of the 
vicarious atonement. Its champions alleged that Christ is 
properly speaking neither our Saviour nor a true high 
priest, but merely a teacher pointing the way to salva- 
tion. The chief object of His coming was to inculcate 
the “Our Father.” To the Socinians have succeeded 
the modern Unitarians, who are distinguished from 
their predecessors principally by the denial of the mi- 
raculous conception of our Lord and the repudiation of 
His worship. The Socinian theology also had consid- 
erable influence in forming the modern Rationalist 
school.* 

Hermes and Giinther® held an intermediate position 
between the Catholic dogma and these heretical vagaries. 

8) Diametrically opposed to the soteriological teach- 
ing of the Pelagians and Socinians is that of the Gnostics 
and Theosophists. 

Gnosticism was at bottom a Manichzan heresy. Its 
votaries held that, since the human soul is part of that 
principle (hyle) which is essentially bad, sin cannot be a 
moral delinquency, and for a man to be redeemed from 
sin implies no more than that his soul is freed from 
the shackles of the material body. The human nature of 
Christ was regarded by the Gnostics as purely fictitious 
and apparitional, because the Divine Logos could not pos- 
sibly unite Himself with matter, which is essentially evil. 

3 These writings are collected in 4th ed., pp. 784 sqq., Freiburg r1gro. 
the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum, 5 On the teaching of Hermes 
Vols. 1 and 2, Irenopoli 1656. (+ 1831) and Giinther (+ 1863), 

4 Blunt, Dictionary of Sects, etc., cfr. J. Kleutgen, S. J., Dheologie 
p. 568. For a detailed analysis of der Vorzeit, Vol. III, pp. 457 saq., 


the Socinian teaching see A. Har- Minster 1870, 
nack, Dogmengeschichte, Vol. III, 


4 


44 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


In such a system, needless to say, there was no room for 
the Redemption, much less for a vicarious atonement. 

Theosophy is subject to similar delusions. Being 
radically Pantheistic, it regards sin as a cosmic factor 
of equal necessity and importance with virtue. Good and 
evil to the Theosophist are two world-powers endowed 
with equal rights. Sin is merely a limitation of infinity. 
The Absolute Being alone, conceived as an impersonal 
spirit, is unbounded and sinless. Each individual human 
soul is part and parcel of the Absolute, and as such 
its own God. In other words, the Deity becomes incar- 
nate in every human being. The human race may be said 
to have been redeemed by Christ only in the sense that He 
was the first to enlighten men on the true relationship 
between the finite and the infinite, between good and evil. 
The real redemption of man consists in his re-absorption 
into the infinite ocean of being, out of which he has tem- 
porarily emerged like a foam-crested wave.® 


b) Though the Church has never formally (in 
terminis) defined the doctrine of the vicarious 
atonement,’ she has nevertheless inculcated the 
substance of it so often and so vigorously that it 
may be said to be one of the cardinal dogmas of 
the Catholic religion. The Third General Council 
of Ephesus (A. D. 431) solemnly defined: “If 
any one therefore says that [Christ] offered Him- 


6On modern Theosophy cfr. E. R. Hull, S. J., Studies in The- 
Madame Blavatky’s Isis Unveiled, osophy, 2nd ed., Bombay 1905; J 
The Secret Doctrine, and Key to TT. Driscoll in the Catholic Encyclo- 
Theosophy; also the numerous writ- pedia, Vol. XIV, pp. 628 sqq. 
ings of Annie Besant, especially her 7 Cfr, K. Martin, Conc. Vatican. 
Esoteric Christianity; A. P. War- Document. Collectio, p. 37, Pader- 
rington, art. ‘‘ Theosophy” in the born 1873. 
Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. XV; 


THE DOGMA 4S 


self up as a sacrifice for Himself, and not solely 
for us,° let him be anathema.” ® Still more 
clearly the Council of Trent: “If any one as- 
serts that this sin of Adam ... is taken away 
. . . by any other remedy than the merit of the 
one Mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath 
reconciled us to God in His own blood, made unto 
us justice, sanctification and redemption, . . . let 
him be anathema.” *? In another place the same 
Council says: “[Christ] by His most holy pas- 
sion on the wood of the Cross merited justifica- 
tion for us and made satisfaction for us unto God 
the Father.” ** The last-quoted phrase closely 
resembles, the technical terminology of the 
Schools. 

2. PROOF FROM SACRED SCRIPTURE.—The vi- 
carious atonement is clearly inculcated both by 
the Old and the New Testament, though not, of 
course, in the technical terms of modern theology. 

a) Isaias gives graphic expression to it in the 


Skat ody! On brép udvwrv Hudr, 
Here is the whole passage in Latin: 
“Si quis ergo dicit, quod pro se 
obtulisset [Christus]  semetipsum 
oblationem et non potius pro nobis 
solis, anathema stt.’’ 

9Conc. Ephes., can. 10 (Denzin- 
ger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 122). 
— Cfr. the Decretum pro Iacobitis 
(tbid., n. 711). 

10“ Si quis hoc Adae peccatum 
-.. per aliud remedium asserit tolli 
quam per meritum unius mediatoris 


D. N. Iesu Christi, qui nos Deo 
reconciliavit in sanguine suo, factus 
nobis iustitia, sanctificatio et redemf 
tio, ... anathema sit.”? Conc. Tri- 
dent., Sess. V, can. 3 (Denzinger- 
Bannwart, n. 790). 

11“ Qui... sua sanctissima pas- 
sione in ligno crucis nobis iustifi- 
cationem meruit et pro nobis Deo 
Patri satisfecit.’ Conc. Trident., 
Sess. VI, cap..7 (Dénzinger-Bann- 
wart, n. 799). We use Water- 
worth’s translation. 


46 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


famous prophecy which describes the suffering 
of the “Servant of God.” 


The Messianic character of this prophecy is sufficiently 
established by such New Testament texts as Mark XV, 
28, lake Xx Xing? Acts VIIT 933.) 9 Pets Ul s2aisqaess 
We quote its salient passages: “ Surely he hath borne 
our infirmities, and carried our sorrows, and we have 
thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by 
God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our ini- 
quities, he was bruised for our sins; the chastisement 
of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we are 
healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, every one 
hath turned aside into his own way; and the Lord hath 
laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was offered ** be- 
cause it was his own will,!4 and he opened not his mouth; 
he shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter. . . . For the 
wickedness of my people have I struck him... . Be- 
cause his soul hath labored, he shall see and be filled; 
by his knowledge shall this my just servant justify 
many, and he shall bear their iniquities ... he hath 
borne the sins of many, and hath prayed for the trans- 
gressors.”?® The vicarious character of the “Ser- 
vant’s” suffering is asserted no less than eight times in 
this passage: (1) “He hath borne our infirmities ;” 
(2): He has “carried our sorrows;’’..(3). “He. was 
wounded for our iniquities;” (4) “ He was bruised for 
our sins;” (5) The “chastisement of our peace was 


12 The argument is well developed 
by A. J. Maas, S. J., Christ in 
Type and Prophecy, Vol. II, pp. 
231 sqq.. New York 1895. 

13 The Masoretic text has, he was 
called upon. (Cfr. Maas, i. c., p. 
240, note.) 


14On certain textual difficulties 
connected with the Hebrew word 
na‘aneh, see Maas., i. ¢C., DP. 241, 
note. 

15 Is, LIII, 4-12. 


SCRIPTURAL PROOF 47 


upon him;”+*® (6) “By his bruises we are healed;” 
(7) “The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us 
all;” (8) “He was offered because it was his own 
will.” +” The passage furthermore embraces all the es- 
sential elements of Christ’s vicarious atonement, to wit: 
(a) the substitution of the innocent Messias for guilty 
sinners; (b) the resulting remission of punishment 
and healing of the evil-doers; (c) the manner in which 
He made satisfaction, 7. e., His sacrificial death.18 


b) The New Testament inculcates the dogma 
of the vicarious atonement both directly and in- 
directly. 

¢) The texts which teach it directly nearly all 
employ the phraseology of, and are dependent 
upon, Isaias. Take, e. g., the exclamation of John 
the Baptist recorded in John I, 29: ‘Behold the 
Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the 
sin of the world.” The passage reads as fol- 
lows in the original Greek: 


ener. \ G , ~ / 99 
oO alpwv TyHV AYapTLav TOV KOO AOU. 


** "Tde 6 dpuvos Tov Ocov 
The apapria rod kécpov 
is original sin. The verb aipar, like the Hebrew 
words 83 and bap employed by Isaias,’ besides 
tollere, 1. é., to take away, also means ferre or 
portare, 1. e., to assume or bear for another. 

St. Peter no doubt had the prophecy of Isaias 


16 That is: The punishment which 
was to procure our peace with God 
and with men, was inflicted on him. 

17 In this clause the prophet rather 
describes the detail of the Servant’s 
sufferings than insists on its vicari- 
ous character; but this, too, may be 


inferred from the nature of the suf- 
fering. Cfr. Maas, Christ in Type 
and Prophecy, Vol. II, p. 240, note. 
18 Cfr. F, Feldmann, Der Knecht 
Gottes in Isaias, Ch. 40-55, Frei- 
burg, 1907. 
19 Is. LIII, 4 and 11. 


48 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


in mind when he wrote: ‘Who his own self bore 
our sins*° in his body upon the tree... by 
whose stripes you were healed. For you were 
as sheep going astray; but you are now converted 
to the shepherd and bishop of your souls.’ * 
This text clearly inculcates Christ’s vicarious 
atonement and describes its concrete realization 
(His death on the Cross). | 

Si Paul isvednally clear, Cire 2 Comiv j2re 
“Him, who knew no sin, he hath made sin for — 
us, that we might be made the justice of God 
in him.” The graphic phrase tp jpov dpyapriay 
éroinoey adrov either means: He hath made him 
who was sinless a sinner, or, more probably, He 
hath made him who was sinless a sacrifice for 
sin.7? In either case St. Paul asserts the dogma 
of Christ’s vicarious atonement. 

Special importance attaches to the many New 
Testament texts which speak of man as being 
“bought” or “purchased” by the Precious Blood 
Gn Christ. Cie: re ory Milos ORL you ate 
bought witha ereat pricey 24/11. Pete Ly porsar. 
.. » you were not redeemed ** with corruptible 
things as gold and silver, . . . but with the pre- 
cious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted 
and undefiled.”’ These terms are borrowed from 


20 dynveyKer, 23 Hyopacbnre, 

211 Pet. II, 24 sq. 24 Redempti estis, é\urpwOnre,— 

22 duapria = sacrificium pro pec- Cfr. also Rom, III, 24, Eph. I, 7, 
Cato Gere -Caaly tigen: 1 Lim, LE) 6, 


SCRIPTURAL PROOF 49 


legal and mercantile usage; they mean that men 
who groaned in the bondage of sin were re- 
garded as free or redeemed by God as soon as 
Christ had offered His Precious Blood for them. 
All of which proves (1) the reality of the atone- 
ment and (2) its vicarious character. 

B) Indirectly the Bible teaches the vicarious 
atonement in all those passages in which Christ 
is called the “second Adam” and contrasted with 
the progenitor of the human race. Cfr. Rom. 
V, 14 sqq.: “Death reigned from Adam unto 
Moses, even over them also who have not sinned 
aiter the similitude of the transgression of Adam, 
who is a figure of him who was to come. But 
not as the offence, so also the gift. For if by 
the offence of one, many died; much more the 
grace of God, and the gift, by the grace of one 
man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. 
. . . For if by one man’s offence death reigned 
through one; much more they who receive abun- 
dance of grace, and of the gift, and of justice, 
shall reign in life through one, Jesus Christ. 
Therefore, as by the offence of one, unto all men 
to condemnation; so also by the justice of one, 
unto all men to justification of life,” etc. 1 Cor. 
XV, 22 sqq.: “As in Adam all die, so-also in 
Christ all shall be made alive,” etc. 


Adam, the physical and juridical head of the human 
race, sinned vicariously, because he was the representa- 


50 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


tive of all; in a similar manner Jesus Christ represented 
the whole race when He restored it to justice. St. Paul’s 
parallel would be meaningless if our Saviour had not 
acted as the representative of the entire human race 
when he died on the Cross. If His rdle as Redeemer had 
been confined to preaching and giving a good example, as 
the Socinians allege, what need was there of His suffering 
a cruel death? And if He died, not in our stead, 
but merely “ for our benefit,” why do not the Socinians 
acclaim the holy martyrs as so eee redeemers? Christ 
became our “ mediator” and “ redeemer” in the Scrip- 
tural sense of these terms only by complementing His 
teaching and example by an act of true and adequate 
satisfaction for our sins. It is only in this sense that 
St. Peter, “filled with the Holy Ghost,” was able to 
exclaim: “Neither is there salvation in any other 
name,” 2° and St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: ils 
Christ divided? Was Paul then [who was also a 
teacher of nations and a martyr] crucified for you? or 
were you baptized in the name of Paul?” °° It is only 
in this way that the name “Jesus” receives its full 
significance as “ Redeemer ” or “ Saviour ” of the human 
race. 

In view of the texts quoted it is incomprehensible how 
the Modernists can allege that “ the doctrine of the sacri- 
ficial death of Christ is not evangelical, but originated 
with St:'Paul.” (See the Syllabus of Pius X, prop. 38). 


3. Proor FRoM TrapiITION.—The Fathers 

nearly all couched their teaching on the vicarious 
atonement in Scriptural terms. 

a) They did not treat purely soteriological 


25 Acts IV, 12. 26.1 Corals 


PROOF FROM TRADITION 51 


questions ex professo, but merely adverted to 
them upon occasion. That the Socinians made 
no attempt to base their teaching upon Patristic 
texts, was due to the fact that Hugo Grotius had 
triumphantly demonstrated the vicarious atone- 
ment from the writings of the Fathers.’ We 
will quote but two of the many available texts. 
“In accordance with the will of God,” says St. 
Clement of Rome, “our Lord Jesus Christ gave 
His blood for us, and His flesh for our flesh, and 
Piisssoul tor ;our souls.) Andist. holyearp,: 
“Let us ever cling to our hope and the pledge *® 
of our righteousness, which is Christ Jesus, who 
bore our sins in His own body on the tree, .. . 
and endured everything for our sakes, that we 
Huet live in Fim.” °° 

b) On its philosophical side the dogma of the 
vicarious atonement underwent a process of de- 
velopment, as is evidenced by the part which some 
of the older Fathers and ecclesiastical writers as- 
signed to the Devil. 


“The question arose as follows: God and Satan are 
as it were two masters who contend for the possession 
of mankind. Hence men by departing from God fell 


27 H. Grotius, Defensio Fidei Ca- 
tholicae de Veritate Satisfactionis, 


tavius, De Incarn., XII, 9 and 
Thomassin, Dogm. Theol., IX, 7. 


published in 1614. 

28 Ep. ad Cor., I, 49, 6. 

29 7G dppaBarve, 

30 Ep. ad Phil., 8.— Many addi- 
tional proofs from the writings of 
the Fathers are to be found in Pe- 


Cfr. also Dérholt, Die Lehre von 
der Genugiuung Christi, pp. 62 sqq., 
Paderborn 1891 and J. F. S. Muth, 
Die Heilstat Christi als stellvertre- 
tende Genugtuung, pp. 169 sqq., 
Ratisbon 1904. 


52 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


under Satan’s power, by whom they are now kept in 
bondage. As, moreover, men had fallen into his power, 
not unwillingly, but of their own choice, may we not 
say that the Devil has over them a real right, a right 
of property and a right of conquest? Hence, when God 
decided to free Satan’s captives, was He not bound in 
justice to recognize and take into consideration the 
Devil’s rights? Many of the Fathers answered this 
question affirmatively.” ** St. Irenzeus was the first to 
insist on the Devil’s alleged rights.??. Origen did not 
hesitate to say that Christ ‘ransomed us with His own 
blood from the power of Satan.’ ** This, in itself blas- 
phemous conception, which logically leads to the conclu- 
sion that Christ gave His blood, nay His very soul to 
the Devil, was rejected by Adamantius (about 300), 
who indignantly branded it as “all nonsense and blas- 
phemy.” ** Saint Gregory of Nyssa followed in 
Origen’s footsteps. But by pushing the theory to its 
logical conclusions, he unconsciously demonstrated its 
absurdity.*® Origen’s notion was formally rejected by 
Gregory of Nazianzus, who declared that Christ’s death 
on the Cross effectively destroyed the tyranny of Satan. 
He says: “For man to be sanctified by the humanity of 
God, it was necessary that He Himself should free us 
from the tyrant, who had to be overcome by violence, and 
bring us back to Himself through the mediation of His 


81J. Riviére, Le Dogme de la 
Rédemption, Paris, 1905, (English 
translation by L. Cappadelta, in 2 
vols., London 1909). The above 
passage is quoted from Vol. II, pp. 
t11 sq. of the English translation. 
Over one-half of the second volume 
is devoted to a discussion of “‘ The 
Devil’s Rights,’’ 


82 Cfr. Riviére-Cappadelta, The 


Doctrine of the Atonement, Vol. II, 
pp. 113 saa. 

383 In Matth., 18, 8; In LIoan., 6, 
35- 
34 rok BAdodnuos dvowa, De 
Recta in Deum Fide, I, 27 (Migne, 
Py Gs, bay BOMSae) s 

35 Cfr. Riviére-Cappadelta, The 
Doctrine of the Atonement, Vol. II, 
pp. 124 sqq. 


THE ROLE OF THE DEVIL 53 


Son.” °° There was a modicum of truth in Origen’s the- 
ory. By the sin of our first parents Satan had become, 
not indeed the absolute master of the human race, but the 
instrument of divine wrath.*7 But when Jesus Christ, 
who was the Mediator between God and the human race, 
gave adequate satisfaction to the offended Deity, the reign 
of the Devil ceased. Very properly, therefore, does St. 
Augustine ** attribute our release from the captivity of 
Satan to the sacrificial character of Christ’s death on 
the Cross and His triumph over Satan to righteous- 
ness rather than might. “It pleased God,’ he says, 
“that in order to the rescuing of man from the power of 
the Devil, the Devil should be conquered, not by might, 
but by righteousness. . . . What, then, is the righteous- 
ness by which the Devil was conquered? What, except 
the righteousness of Christ? In this redemption the 
blood of Christ was given, as it were, as a price for 
us, by accepting which the Devil was not enriched, but 
bound, that we might be loosed from his bonds.” * 
Hence, the redemption of man from the clutches of 
Satan did not “enrich” our arch-enemy but enslaved 
him, since the demands of righteousness were fulfilled. 
It was St. Bernard of Clairvaux who first developed this 
thought into the formal notion of vicarious atonement. 
“The prince of this world came and found nothing in 
the Saviour,’ he writes; “and when he nevertheless 
laid hands upon the innocent one, he rightly lost those 
who were his captives, when He who owed nothing to 
death, accepting the injury of death, rightly released him 
who was guilty of sin, both from the debt of death and 


36 De Agno Paschali, 22. teaching of St. Augustine cfr. 
87 Cfr. John XII, 31; XIV, 30; 2 #£Riviére-Cappadelta, op. cit., II, 146 
Cor. IV, 4; Heb. II, 14. sqq. 


38 De Trinit., IV, 13.—-On the 39:De Trinit., XIII, 13, 14, 15. 


54 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


the power of the Devil. By what justice could this have 
been exacted from man, since it was man who owed and 
man who paid the debt? For ‘if one died for all,’ [says 
the Apostle, 2 Cor. V, 14], ‘then all were dead’: that, 
namely, the satisfaction of one be imputed to all . . . be- 
cause the one head and body is Christ. The head there- 
fore gave satisfaction for the members, Christ for His 
bowels.” 4° Abélard, and especially St. Anselm, at length 
delivered theology from “a decaying doctrine which was 
now superfluous, if not actually dangerous.” *! The 
abuse-of-power theory made way for St. Anselm’s for- 
ensic theory of satisfaction, which, after having been 
purged of its harsher features by St. Thomas, became 
the common teaching of the Schoolmen. 

Theology has a right, nay the duty, to subject this 
theory, both in its original Patristic form and in the 
shape which it assumed under the hands of the medieval 
Scholastics, to respectful criticism. We do not deny that 
the theory may be defensible within certain carefully de- 
fined limits. But as onesidedly developed by the Scholas- 
tics, it does not embody the whole truth which we are able 
to gather from Divine Revelation. Revelation contains 
certain seed-thoughts which the Fathers and Schoolmen 
failed to appreciate at their full value. The sacrifice of 
the Divine Logos was dictated by infinite love and mercy 
as well as by strict justice. Cfr. John III, 16: “God 


40‘ Venit princeps huius munds 
et in Salvatore non invenit quid- 
quam. Et quum nihilominus inno- 
centi manus iniecit, iustissime quos 
tenebat amisit, quando is qui mort 
nihil debebat, accepta mortis iniuria 
ture tllum, qui obnoxius erat, et 
mortis debito et diaboli solvit do- 
minio. Qua enim iustitia id secundo 
ab homine exigeretur? Homo si- 
quidem qui debuit, homo qui solvit. 


Nam si unus (inquit) pro omnibus 
moriuus est, ergo omnes mortut sunt 
(2 Cor. V, 14): ut videlicet satisfac- 
tio unius omnibus imputetur... 
quia caput et corpus wunus est 
Christus. Satisfecit ergo caput pro 
membris, Christus pro visceribus 
suis.” De Erroribus Abaelardi, cap. 
6. 
41 Riviére-Cappadelta, op. cit., II, 
220. 


SATISFACTION AND MERIT 55 


so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son.” # 
God must not be conceived as an angry tyrant, who un- 
mercifully slays his Son in order to avenge himself on 
the human race and thereby, as it were, to gratify the 
Devil, who gloats over the misfortune of others. God is 
just, but He is also a loving Father, who punishes His 
wayward children in the person of His beloved Son to 
show them the malice of sin by a terrible example. In 
other words, we cannot harmonize all the revealed ele- 
ments of the atonement unless we give due emphasis to 
the ethical factor. The purely forensic theory of satis- 
faction must be supplemented and deepened by the “ ethi- 
cal theory of reconciliation,” which accentuates God’s love 
for Christ and the human race, and also the moral purpose 
of the Redemption, i. ¢., the internal redemption of man 
by regeneration in God. Thus only shall we be able to 
refute the objections — more or less well founded — 
which Harnack ** and Pfleiderer ** have raised against 
the theory of satisfaction championed by the Scholas- 
tics, notably St. Anselm. i 


4. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN “SATISFAC- 
TION” AND “Me_rit.’—Entitatively considered, 
an act of satisfaction may also be a meritorious 
act. Nevertheless there is both a logical and a 
real distinction between satisfaction and merit as 
such. Satisfaction, in the narrower sense of the 
term, is reparation made for an offence, while 
merit may be defined as a good work performed 


42 Cfr. also Eph, I, 3 sqq., II, 4 44 Religionsphilosophie, Vol. II, 
sqq.; Tit. III, 4 sq., and 1 Pet. I, 3. 2nd ed., Berlin 1884, pp. 467 sqq. 
43 Grundriss der Dogmengeschich- 
te, 4th ed., pp. 304 saqq. 


56 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


for the benefit of another and entitled to a re- 
ward.*® Satisfaction supposes a creditor who 
insists on receiving his just dues, merit a debtor 
bound to give a reward. If the reward is a 
matter of justice, we have a meritum de condigno, 
if it is merely a matter of equity, a meritum de 
congruo. 

The merits of Christ may be regarded from a 
fourfold point of view: (1) As to their reality, 
(2) as to the time when they were acquired, (3) 
as to their object or purpose, and (4) as to the 
scope of their application. 

a) It is an article of faith that the Redeemer 
gained merits for us. 


Christ, says the Tridentine Council, “ merited justifi- 
cation for us by His most holy Passion on the*wood of 
the Cross.” The same sacred Council employs the phrase: 
“Per meritum unius mediatoris Domini nostri Iesu 
Christi,’ and anathematizes those who say, “ Homuines 
sine Christi iustitia, per quam nobis meruit iustificari, 
aut per eam ipsam formaliter iustos esse.’ *® Isaias 
regarded the Redemption as a meritorious work. Is. 
LIII, to: ‘‘ And the Lord was pleased to bruise him 
in infirmity: if he shall lay down his life for sin, he 
shall see a long-lived seed [1. e., spiritual progeny] and 
the will of the Lord shall be prosperous in his hand.” 
Here satisfaction and merit are so nearly alike as to be 

45 “© Meritum est opus bonum in Sess. V, can. 3; Sess. VI, can. 10. 
favorem alterius mercede vel praemio Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchiri-. 


dignum,.” dion, n. 799, 790, 820. 
46 Conc. Trid., Sess. VI, cap. 7; _ 


THE MERITS OF CHRIST 57 


materially identical; the Redeemer laid God under abs 
ligation while satisfying His just claims. But since He 
merited not only grace for us, but likewise extrinsic 
glory for Himself, His merits exceed the limits of the 
satisfaction which He gave to His Heavenly Father, be- 
cause He did not need to give any satisfaction for Him- 
self. 


b) When did Christ perform His meritorious 
actions? In attempting to answer this question 
we must distinguish between the terminus a quo 
and the terminus ad quem. 


Our Lord performed no meritorious actions (in the 
technical sense of the term) outside of the period of His 
earthly pilgrimage (status viae). Hence the terminus ad 
quem was the moment of His death.*7 That this is the 
teaching of Holy Scripture may be gathered from such 
texts as John IX, 4 sq.; Heb. IX, 12, X, II sqq. True, 
St. Paul teaches that the glorified Redeemer continues to 
“make intercession for us in Heaven.” 48 But the in- 
tercession He makes for us in Heaven is based on the 
merits which He gained on earth and aims solely at the 
application of these merits to individual men. 

Which was the terminus a quo of our Lord’s merito- 
rious actions? A man cannot perform any meritorious 
deeds before he has attained to the full use of reason and 
free-will, which generally occurs about the seventh year. 
In the Godman Jesus Christ, human consciousness awoke 
when the Godhead became hypostatically united with 
manhood, that is to say, at the instant of His concep- 

47 The question whether this limi- to an intestine necessity, is purely 
tation of Christ’s meritorious action speculative, and will be discussed in 


is based upon a positive and free Eschatology. 
decree of God, or whether it is due 48 Rom. VIII, 34; Heb. VII, 25. 


58 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


tion.4® Hence the terminus a quo of His meritorious 
actions was the first moment of His existence as God- 
man,?° 


c) The principal object of Christ’s meritorious 
actions was the justification of sinners. 


It is an article of faith that our Divine Saviour 
merited for us the forgiveness of all sins, including 
griginal sin, and, in addition, sanctifying grace. That the 
actual graces required for and during the process of 
justification also flow from the thesaurus of Christ's 
merits, is a theologically certain conclusion.** Capreolus 
denied it;®? but the Tridentine Council, in teaching, 
“Tpsius iustificationis exordium in adultis a Dew per 
Christum Iesum praeveniente gratia sumendum esse,” 
evidently employs the phrase “ per Christum Iesum” in 
the sense of “ per meritum Christi Iesu.’ It is likewise 
an article of faith that man, in the state of grace.which 
follows justification, receives all the graces and merits 
which come to him solely from the treasury of the merits 
of Jesus Christ.6* Our Lord Himself inculcates this by 
the parable of the vine and its branches.™* 

Christ also merited a reward for. Himself, which con- 
sists chiefly in His extrinsic glorification after death. 
Cfr. Luke XXIV, 26: “ Nonne haec oportut pati Chri- 
stum et ita intrare in gloriam suam? — Ought not Christ 
to have suffered these things, and so to enter into his 
glory?” Phil. II, 9: “ Propter quod et Deus exaltavit 
illum et donavit illi nomen, quod est super omne nomen — 


49 Cfr, Pohle-Preuss, Christology, 53 Cfr. Conc. Trident., Sess. VI, 
pp. 259 sqq. cap. 16; Sess. XIV, cap. 8. (Den- 
50 Cfr. Heb. X, 5. zinger-Bannwart, n. 809, 904.) 

51 Cfr: 2 Tim. .I, .9. 54 John XV, 5. On the grace of 


52 Cfr. F. Stentrup, Soteriologia, predestination cfr. St. Thomas, S. 
thes. 36, Theol., 3a, qu. 19, art. 3. 


THE MERITS OF CHRIST 59 


For which cause God also exalted him, and hath given 
- him a name which is above all names.” Heb. II, 9: 
“Videmus Iesum propter passionem mortis gloria et 
honore coronatum — We see Jesus . . . for the suffering 
of death, crowned with glory and honor.” It is conse- 
quently unscriptural to hold, as Calvin did, that Christ’s 
love for the human race prompted Him to waive all 
claims to His own honor.®® 

In determining the scope of Christ’s merits, Saint 
Thomas proceeds as follows: “ Since every perfection 
and noble quality must be attributed to Christ, it follows 
that He possessed by merit whatever others possess 
by merit, unless it be something which would detract 
from His dignity and perfection more than 
* could be gained by merit.”*° Hence, he continues, 
“Christ merited neither grace, nor knowledge, nor beati- 
tude of soul, nor Divinity (7. e., the Hypostatic Union). 
‘As only that can be merited which one does not yet pos- 
sess, Christ would have lacked all these perfections, 
and therefore it is plain that He merited only such things 
as the glory of the body, and whatever pertains to its 
extrinsic excellence, e. g., the ascension, adoration, etc.’’ 57 

d) The question: Who participates in the merits of 
Christ? coincides with that regarding the universality 
of the atonement, which we shall treat below, Sect. 2, Art. 
2,58 


55 Cfr. Bellarmine, De Christo, V, 58 On the whole subject dealt with 
8-10. in this subdivision of our treatise 
56S, Theol., 3a, qu. 19, art. 3. consult Pesch, Praelectiones Dog- 


571. c.— Cfr. Simar, Lehrbuch der maticae, Vol. IV, 3rd ed., pp. 252 
Dogmatik, Vol. I, 4th ed., pp. 532 sqq., Friburgi 1909. 
sqq., Freiburg 1899, 


SECTION” 2 


THE PROPERTIES OF CHRIST'S VICARIOUS ATONE- 
MENT | 


ARTICLE -1 


INTRINSIC PERFECTION OF THE ATONEMENT 


Christ’s vicarious atonement is intrinsically perfect and 
comprises within its scope all sins and all sinners. 

The intrinsic perfection of Christ’s vicarious atone- 
ment manifests itself in three ascending stages, which 
are technically called adequacy, rigorousness, and super- 
abundance. _ | 

By adequate atonement we understand a satisfaction 
which completely and fully repairs the offence com- 
mitted, or, at least, is accepted as a full reparation by 
the person offended. If the satisfaction rendered is of 
such high intrinsic merit that the offended person is in 
justice compelled to accept it, it is called rigorous. If 
it exceeds the offence committed, it is superabundant. 


_ Thesis I: The satisfaction which Christ made for 
our sins was adequate, i. e., fully sufficient. 


This thesis embodies the common teaching of 
a majority of Catholic theologians. 
Proof. The reality of Christ’s vicarious 


atonement is an article of faith, with which we 
60 


ADEQUACY OF THE ATONEMENT 61. 


have already dealt (supra, Sect. 1). In the 
present thesis we are merely concerned with its 
intrinsic properties. As the Church has never 
defined these, the Scotists were free to estimate 
them differently than the majority of Catholic 
divines. 


The Scotists and the Nominalists hold that Christ’s 
vicarious atonement derives its adequacy not from its 
Own intrinsic merit, but from the accidental circumstance 
of its “extrinsic acceptation ” by God. Suarez rejects 
this theory as “ neither probable, nor pious, nor suffi- 
ciently in accordance with the faith.” This is a per- 
fectly just criticism, since both Holy Scripture and 
Tradition declare that the satisfaction which Christ made 
for us was equivalent to the offence inherent in sin. 


a) Holy Scripture distinctly declares that we 
were “bought” with a “price,’? and that this 
price was the Precious Blood of our LOVES, EY 
Merb sqrt ff, ¢ you were not redeemed 
with corruptible things, . . . but with the pre- 
cious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and 
undefiled.” How could the blood of Christ be 
called “precious” if its value was not equiva- 
lent to the offence for the reparation of which 
it was shed? St. Paul says: “You are bought 
with a great price.” ? This phrase likewise indi- 
cates that the satisfaction given by our Divine Re- 
deemer was equivalent to the guilt of sin. 


1 De Incarn., disp, 4, sect, 3, n. Il, 8 Pretio magno, Tiins, 1% Cor. 
2 Pretium, NUTpor, VI, 20. 


ey, 


62 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


Moreover, the Bible tells us that the Godman im- 
molated Himself in expiation for our sins. 
Hence the satisfaction He gave to His Heavenly 
Father must be of equal value with Himself, and 
therefore, to say the least, adequate. Coie AE 
Tim. I], 5 sq: . “There is. one God, andone 
mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: 
who gave himself a redemption for all (4v7éAv- 
mpov).” The graphic term évtiAvtpov, which St. 
Paul here employs instead of plain Avtps, shows 
that he conceives “the redemption for all” as a 
full equivalent for sin. “Quanta iniuria, tanta 
satisfactio.” In fact, it is only in this hypothe- 
sis that we can understand why the Apostle 
attaches such tremendous importance to the 
singleness of our Lord’s sacrifice on the Cross, in 
contradistinction to the multiplicity of the inetf- 
fective offerings of the Levites. Cfr. Heb. IX, 
13 and 28: “By his own blood he entered once * 
into the holies, having obtained eternal redemp- 
tion. .. . So also Christ was offered once® to 
exhaust the sins of many.” 

b) Patristic texts in support of our thesis will 
be found infra, p. 71. A convincing theologi- 
cal argument for the adequacy of the atone- 
ment may be deduced from the concept of our 
Lord’s natural mediatorship (supra, Ch. I, Sect. 
Li). : 


4 Semel, d&raé, 5 Semel, drag, 


ADEQUACY OF THE ATONEMENT 63 


a) By virtue of the Hypostatic Union all hu- 
man actions of the Godman are infinitely valuable 
in the eyes of God, independently of their ex- 
trinsic acceptation, because a theandric merit de- 
tives its full value solely from the infinite dignity 
of the Logos.° But an atonement, the expiatory 
power of which is, morally considered, infinite, 
cannot be conceived otherwise than as adequate. 

8) The Scotists and the Nominalists are con- 
sequently in error when they teach that the meri- 
torious and expiatory value of Christ’s vicarious 
atonement, though extrinsically infinite because 
of its benevolent acceptation on the part of God,’ 
is not so intrinsically, 7. e., on account of its own 
immanent worth. Scotus’ own teaching on this 
point is uncertain.® But the great majority of 
Scotist theologians, including such later authors 
as Frassen, De Rada, and Henno, undoubtedly 
underestimated the meritoriousness of Christ’s 
theandric operation by asserting that it became 
infinitely valuable only through the condescension 
of God in deigning to accept it as such. The Sco- 
tists admit that Christ’s human actions, because 
performed by the exalted person of the Godman, 
were invested with a certain equitable claim to 


6 Cfr, Pohle-Preuss, 
pp. 161 sqq. 


Christology, 9 Scotus, Comment. in Quatuor 


Libros Sent., III, dist. 19. Hauzeur 


7 Infinitas extrinseca ob benignam 
Dei acceptationem. 

8 Infinitas intrinseca ob valorem 
innatum. 7 


and a few other Scotists attempted 
to reconcile their master’s teaching 
with the sententia communis, but in 
vain, 


64 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


be received as of infinite value by a loving God; 
but they deny that these actions can by their own 
power attain to infinitude. This they declare 
to be impossible because these actions are essen- 
tially the product of a finite (human) nature. 
As the intrinsic or bullion value of a coin need 
not equal the extrinsic valuation stamped upon 
its face, they say, so the human actions of our 
Saviour were in themselves of a merely finite 
value, but capable of being raised to a higher valu- 
ation by God. 

Mastrius and a few others restrict the Scotistic 
theory to the thesis (which no one denies) that, 
to render His atonement valid im actu secundo, 
our Divine Saviour had first to assure Himself 
of its acceptation on the part of God, not indeed 
per modum principii dignificantis, but per modum 
conditionis praeviae. This is beside the question. 
What the Scotists assert is that the satisfaction 
which Christ made for our sins was intrin- 
sically insufficient or inadequate, and that what 
it lacked in intrinsic merit was supplied by 
God’s extrinsic acceptation. Their basic error 
‘consists in this that they fail to distinguish be- 
tween the physical entity and the ethical value of 
Christ’s meritorious actions, confounding the 
finite character of the former with the infinity of 
the latter. Justly, therefore, do the Thomists ” 


10 Cfr. Billuart, De Incarn., diss. 19, art. 5. 


ADEQUACY OF THE ATONEMENT 65 


insist that the Hypostatic Union endows a phys-— 
ically finite act with a morally infinite value, be- 
cause it is the infinite Divine Person that performs 
that act as principium quod, employing the finite 
nature merely as principium quo. Were we to 
trace the Scotist theory to its sources, we should 
probably find that its originators had no clear con- 
ception of the character of theandric operation 
and misconceived the true nature and scope of 
the Hypostatic Union."! 


Thesis II: The satisfaction which Christ made for 
our sins was not only adequate, but rigorous, accord- 
ing to the standard of strict justice. 


Proof. In the preceding thesis we saw that 
Christ’s vicarious atonement was quantitatively 
adequate, 7. e., equivalent to all the sins of man- 
kind. We have now to show that it was ade- 
quate also in quality, 7. e., measured by the stand- 
ard of strict justice (secundum rigorem tustitiae ). 


In other words, it was not necessary for God’s mercy 
to supply anything over and above the satisfaction ren- 
dered by Christ, since this satisfaction fully covered all 
just claims. ee 

This thesis does not embody an article of faith. It is 
not even a theological conclusion. But it voices the 
ae On the uncertain teaching of gen, 1907, pp. 241 sqq. On the 
Scotus cfr. P, Minges, O. F. M., general subject of this thesis cfr.. 
Compend. Theol.. Dogmat. Specialis, also De Lugo, De Myst. Incarn., 


‘Vol. I, pp. 213 sqq., Monachii 1901; disp. 6, sect. 1; Scheeben, Dog- 
Theologische Quartalschrift; Tiibin- matik, Vol. III, §251, Freiburg 1882, 


66 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


more general teaching of Catholic divines, especially of 
the Thomist school, and of Suarez, Tanner, Gregory of 
Valentia, Franzelin, and others. In a limited way we 
may also number among its defenders those Scotist the- 
ologians who, like Mastrius, admit that the atonement 
satisfied divine justice, though not to its full extent. 


a) It pertains to the dogmatic treatise De Deo 
Uno*? to show that the only kind of relation 
possible between God and His creatures is a 
free but real relation of rights and duties based 
upon the veracity and fidelity of the Creator. 
Christ’s vicarious atonement embodies all the con- 
ditions necessary and sufficient to establish a re- 
lation of strict and rigorous justice. These con- 
ditions are five in number, to wit: (4) Equiva- 
lence of debit and credit; (&) difference of person 
between debtor and creditor; (vy) payment of the 
debt out of the debtor’s own means; (8) absence 
of all other indebtedness; (€) payment of the debt 
in person or through a bondsman. These condi- 
tions are selected somewhat arbitrarily, and it is 
not easy to prove that Christ fulfilled them all. 
For this reason some theologians prefer not to 
speak of a rigor tustitiae. However, the senten- 
tia commumor rests on fairly solid ground. 

a) That Christ fulfilled the first of the conditions 


enumerated was shown in Thesis I. 
8) Condition number two demands that debtor and 


12 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God: His Knowability, Essence and Attributes, 
PP. 457 saq. 


ADEQUACY OF THE ATONEMENT 67 


creditor must be separate and distinct persons. “ Satis- 
factio debet esse ad alterum.’ No one can be his own 
debtor. How could Christ fulfil this condition? Since 
He is Himself God, is it not physically the same person 
that merits and rewards? This difficulty cannot be solved 
by the retort that Christ renders satisfaction to God the 
Father. Humanity’s creditor was not the Father alone, 
but the whole Trinity. The right solution seems to be 
this: In atoning for our sins, Christ acts both as man 
and as God, and hence makes satisfaction virtually as a 
double person: (1) the man Jesus makes satisfaction to 
God for our sins in His human nature, as if He were a 
different person from the Logos; (2) The Logos, as God, 
accepts this satisfaction. If Christ, as man, was able to 
practice the virtues of obedience and worship towards 
Himself as God, it can be no contradiction to say that, 
as man, He gave satisfaction to Himself, gua God, ac- 
cording to the strict measure of justice. 

We must, however, beware of misinterpreting the ex- 
pression duplex persona moralis, as Berruyer (a pupil of 
Hardouin) did when he asserted that the humanity of our 
Lord was a quasi-suppositum, to which, as to a distinct 
human person, must be ascribed certain actions of Christ 
which had no intrinsic hypostatic connexion with the Per- 
son of the Logos.1# 

y) The third of the conditions enumerated above is 


13 ‘‘What does it mean to be the and iniquity of men.” Ennar. in 


mediator between God and men?” 
asks St. Augustine, and answers the 
question as follows: “It means to 
be a mediator not between the 
Father and men, but between God 
and men. What is God? He is 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.... 
Christ was constituted mediator be- 
tween this Trinity and the infirmity 


EAS i 2Oun oa ts 

14On this dangerous error see 
Legrand, De Incarn., diss. 11, Paris 
1860; yon Schazler, Das Dogma von 
der Bei Gottes, §24, 
Freiburg 1870; Scheeben, Dogmatik, 
Vol. III, pp. 29 sqq., Freiburg 1882; 
B. Dorholt, Die Lehre von der Ge- 
nugtuung Christi, pp. 435 sqq., Pa- 
derborn 1891. 


68 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


that the debtor must pay his liability out of his own be- 
longings. “ Satisfactio debet fiert ex bonis propriis.” 
Did Christ fulfil this condition? As He was a man, His 
power of giving satisfaction for our sins (vis merendi sive 
satisfaciend1) must have been a grace, 7. e., a free gift 
of God, and consequently the atonement cannot have 
been a payment made by Him out of His own means. 
Even the supernatural merits of a justified man, being due 
to pure grace, cannot satisfy rigorous justice. Indeed we 
may broadly say that, as man possesses nothing of his own, 
but has received everything he has from God, whether by 
creation or by grace, so Christ’s human nature, which was 
the principium quo of His meritorious and expiatory ac- 
tion, was not His own but a gift of the debtor, 7. e., God. 
_ This objection may be met as follows: It was not the 
man Jesus, but the Godman, whose meritorious actions 
made satisfaction for our sins. In other words, not the 
human nature of Christ as such made satisfaction, but the 
Divine Logos: through the functions of His human na- 
ture, which, by virtue of the Hypostatic Union, is so inti- 
mately united to the Logos that He possesses and governs 
it with absolute sovereignty as its sole principium quod. 
To attribute such a sovereign control over the human 
nature of Christ to the Father and the Holy Ghost, 
i. e., to the Trinity qua Godhead, would be tantamount 
to asserting that it was not the Logos alone who was 
made flesh, but the whole Blessed Trinity.** But this is 
manifestly repugnant. The human nature of Christ was 
the personal property of the Logos, and the satisfaction 
He made through that nature was made ex bonis pro- 
prus.?® 
8) We come to the fourth condition: “ Satisfactio 


115 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Christology, 16 Cfr. Ysambert, De Myst. In- 
Pp. 132 sqq. carn., disp. 6, art. 2-3, Paris 1639. 


ADEQUACY OF THE ATONEMENT 69 


debet esse ex alias indebitis.” Satisfaction must be 
made by means of something which the debtor does not 
already owe to his creditor on some other account. It 
may be argued that this condition, too, remained unful- 
filled in the case of our Divine Saviour, because whatever 
He did and suffered, He was obliged to do and suffer 
for reasons other than that prompting the atonement, 
such as gratitude and obedience to God, a feeling of de- 
pendence, piety, etc. Can an action to which one is 
obliged by so many titles be in strict justice regarded as 
meritorious ? 

Suarez offers two solutions of this difficulty. (1) 
The rigor iustitiae, he says, is to be measured purely and 
solely by the titulus iustitiae. Even if a debtor were obli- 
gated by gratitude towards his creditor, he would never- 
theless satisfy rigorous justice as soon as he paid the last 
farthing of his indebtedness. Though other duties re- 
mained, justice as such would be satisfied. (2) The 
intrinsic merit of the satisfaction which Christ made 
for our sins is infinite, and as such capable of satisfying, 
not merely one single title of justice, but many, nay, an 
infinite number of such titles. Consequently justice can 
be rigorously satisfied even though there are other titles 
and duties. 

e) The last condition is that satisfaction must be made 
by the debtor for himself. “ Satisfactio debet fieri pro 
se ipso, non pro alienis.’ Strictly speaking, Christ did 
not fulfil this condition, because He made atonement for 
others. It is to be noted, however, that the rigor iustitiae 
can be satished by proxy, provided the substitute is 
formally accepted by the creditor and the proportion 
between debt and reparation is strictly observed. Let it 
not be objected that where an offence has been committed 
the offended person waives his claim to strict justice by 


70 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


surrendering his right to personal satisfaction. He does 
’ not remit the debt, nor any part thereof, but merely com- 
mutes it into something of equal value.” 


Thesis III: The Satisfaction which Christ made 
for our sins was,more than adequate and rigorous; it 
was superabundant. 


This thesis may be characterized as “ com- 
munis,” since it is held by practically all theolog- 
ical schools. 

Proof. a) A Scriptural argument may be 
drawn from St. Paul’s antithetical sentences in 
tracing the analogy between Adam and Christ. 
Cir? Rom, WV y.15 3.4; But not as; the ‘oftence,2so 
also the gift. For if by the offence of one many 
died; much more* the grace of God, and the 
gift, by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, hath 
abounded unto many.” *® And even more point- 
edly Rom. V, 20: “Where sin abounded,” grace 
did more abound.” ** The Apostle here distinctly 
asserts that Christ gave superabundant satisfac- 
tion for our sins. The sin was great, but the 
atonement and the graces flowing therefrom are 
still greater.** 


17 Cfr. on the subject of these 18 Mulio magis, woAXA@ paddopr, 
conditions and their fulfilment by 19 In plures abundavit, eis trovs 
Christ: Franzelin, De Verbo Incarn., mohXovs émeplacevcer- 
thes. 47, Rome 1881 (new edition, 20 Abundavit, érdedvacer, 

1910); B. Dorholt, Die Lehre von 21 Superabundavit gratia, bmrepe- 
der Genugtuung Christi, pp. 424 844, repiocevoev } Xapis. — 
Paderborn 1891; Tepe, Inst. Theol., 22 Cfr. Eph. I, 3-8; John X, 10. 


Vol. III, pp. 639 sqq., Paris 1896. 


THE ATONEMENT SUPERABUNDANT § 41 


b) The Fathers generally held that the ade-— 
quacy of the atonement can be most effectively 
demonstrated from its superabundant meritori- 
ousness. 


Thus St. Cyril of Jerusalem trenchantly argues: 
“He who died for us was of no less value. He was 
not a visible lamb, no mere man, nor yet an angel, 
but the incarnate God. The wickedness of sinners was 
not as great as the righteousness of Him who died for 
us. Our sins were not equal to the justice of Him who 
died for us.” ?* St. Chrysostom exemplifies this truth as 
follows: ‘ Our experience has been like that of a man 
who was cast into prison with his wife and children and 
servants for a debt of ten oboli, and another man came 
and plumped down not only ten oboli, but ten thousand 
gold talents, and then led the prisoner into the royal 
chamber, placed him on an exalted throne, and allowed 
him to share in the highest honors. . . . For Christ paid 
far more than we owed, and in a larger measure, like as 
the infinite ocean exceeds in magnitude a tiny drop of 
water.” *4 


c) If Christ’s vicarious atonement was super- 
abundantly meritorious, that is to say, far in ex- 
cess of the sins for which it was made, its intrin- 
sic worth must have been actually infinite. This 
inference is demanded by all the rules of theolog- 
ical logic, and hence we need not wonder that 
Suarez lays it down as the common teaching of 


28 Catech., 33, ¢c. 13. Cfr. also B, Dorholt, Die Lehre von 

24 Hom, in Ep. ad Rom., 10, 2. der Genugtuung Christi, pp. 376 
Additional Patristic texts apud Pe- saqq., 419 sqq.; Muth, Die Heilstat 
tav., XII, 9 and Thomassin, IX, 9. Christi, pp. 228 saq. 


6 fb THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


Catholic divines that ‘the actions of Christ pos- 
sessed a value which was absolutely and strictly 
infinite in making satisfaction and acquiring 
merits before God.” * 


a) St. Thomas demonstrates this proposition by a the- 
ological argument based on the infinite dignity of the God- 
man. “ The dignity of Christ’s flesh,” he says, “‘ must not 
be estimated solely by the nature of the flesh, but by the 
assuming person; it was the flesh of God, hence its dig- 
nity is infinite.” °° Asa matter of fact, the intrinsic moral 
‘value of an action varies in proportion to the dignity 
of him who performs it, and therefore the actions of a 
person of infinite dignity, when offered in satisfaction for 
an offence, must be infinitely meritorious. 

To demonstrate the infinite value of Christ’s vicari- 
ous atonement, it is not necessary to have recourse to 
its superabundant merit; the proposition follows as a 
corollary from the fact of its mere adequacy. If no 
one but a Godman was able to give adequate satisfaction 
for our sins, each and every one of Christ’s theandric 
actions, even the most insignificant, must have been sufh- 
cient, nay more than sufficient, for the purposes of the 
atonement, because each and every action performed by 
a Godman is by its very nature infinitely meritorious. 

As to the question, why the meritorious actions of our 
Lord had of necessity to culminate in His dolorous pas- 
sion and death, St. Thomas says: “If we regard the 
amount paid for the redemption of the human race, any 
suffering undergone by Christ, even without death, would 


25 “Opera Christi Domini habuisse  tenableness of the Scotistic theory 


valorem absolute et simpliciter in- of extrinsic acceptation v. supra, 
finitum ad satisfaciendum et meren- pp. 63 sqq. 
dum apud Deum.’ De_ Incarn., 26S. Theol., 3a, qu. 48, art. 2, ad 


disp. 4, sect. 4, n. 3.—On the un- 3. Cfr, Suarez, op. cit., n. 17 84]. 


THE ATONEMENT SUPERABUNDANT 73 


have sufficed fr the redemption of the human race, on 
account of the infinite dignity of His person. ... But 
if we regard the payment of the price, it must be ob- 
served that no other suffering less than Christ’s death was 
deemed sufficient by God the Father and by Christ Him- 
self to redeem the human race.” 27 


8) That the satisfaction which Christ made for 
our sins was infinite, may also be inferred from 
certain utterances (though they are not ex-ca- 
thedra decisions) of the Holy See. Among the 
propositions of Bajus condemned by Pope Pius V 
in the year 1567 is the following: ‘The works 
of justice and temperance performed by Christ 
derived no additional value from the dignity of 
Hiseperson.’”** . Hence it is Catholic teaching 
that the actions of Christ derived a higher value 
from the “dignity of His Person.” How high is 
this value to be rated? Evidently it must have 
corresponded to the infinite dignity of the God- 
man,—which is merely another way of saying that 
it was infinite. | , 

A far more important pronouncement for our 
present purpose is this from the Bull “Unigeni- 


27 “Si ergo loquamur de redembp- 
tione humani generis quantum ad 
quantitatem pretit, sic quaelibet pas- 
sio Christi etiam sine morte suffecis- 
set ad redemptionem humani ge- 
neris propter infinitam dignitatem 
personae... St autem loquamur 
quantum ad deputationem pretii, sic 
dicendum est quod non sunt depu- 
tatae ad redemptionem humani ge- 


neris a.Deo Patre et Christo aliae 
passiones Christi absque morte.’ 
Quodlib. 2, art 2.—Cfr, Dorholt, op. 
cit., pp. 405 saqq. 

28 “Opera iustitiae et temperan- 
tiae, quas Christus fecit, ex dignitate 
personae operantis non traxerunt 
maiorem valorem.” Prop. 19 (Den- 
zinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, nn, 
1019). 


“74 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


tus’ of -Pope: Clement VI, A. Di1343: “He ts 
known to have shed, not a little drop of blood,— 
though this would have sufficed for the redemp- 
tion of the entire human race, because of the [| Hy- 
postatic] Union with the Logos,—but streams 
“OL i, like winto aoriver. 20.0) hatethe mercy ane 
volved in such a large effusion [of blood] be not 
rendered vain, empty, and superfluous, He laid up 
for the Church militant a copious treasure, which 
the good Father desires to dispense to his children, 
in order that it may become an infinite store-house 
for men, and that those who make use of it may 
share in the friendship of God.” 7? Pope Clem- 
ent, in issuing his Bull, did not intend to define 
the dogmatic teaching of the Church with regard 
to this “infinite treasure.”’ Nor does the document 
contain any clear expression as to whether Christ’s 
merits are to be conceived as actually or po- 
tentially infinite. Hence the above-quoted words 
cannot be said to constitute a binding dogmatic 
definition. _Wemay, however, safely assume that 
Clement VI intended to represent the treasure of 
Christ’s merits as actually infinite, for this is the 
obvious meaning of his words, considered both in 


tio redderetur, thesaurum militants 
Ecclesiae acquisivit, volens suis 


29 Non guttam sanguinis modi- 
cam, quae tamen propter unionem 


ad Verbum pro redemptione totius 


humani generis suffecisset, sed cCo- | 


piose velut quoddam profluvium nos- 
citur effudisse... Quantum ergo 
exinde, ut nec supervacua, inanis et 
superflua tantae effusionis misera- 


thesaurizare filtis pius Pater, ut sic 
sit infinitus thesaurus hominibus, 
quo qui usi sunt Dei amicitiae par- 
ticipes sunt effecti.” Denzinger 
Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. §50. 


CHRIST DIED FOR ALL 7s 


themselves and in connection with the context. 

The doctrine of the superabundant merits of 
Jesus Christ and His Saints forms the ground- 
work of the Catholic teaching on indulgences, 
which we shall explain more fully in a later 
volume of this series.*° 


ARTICLE 2 


EXTRINSIC PERFECTION OR UNIVERSALITY OF THE 
ATONEMENT 


If, as we have shown in the preceding Article, the 
satisfaction made for our sins by Christ was intrinsically 
perfect, there is a priori ground for assuming that it 
must have embraced all men without exception. In mat- 
ter of fact the universality of the atonement objectively 
coincides with the universality of God’s will to save the 
entire human race (voluntas salvifica), Here we shall 
merely touch upon a few important points ee on the 
Redemption. 


Thesis I: Christ died for all the faithful, not only 
for the predestined. 


This proposition is strictly de fide. 

Proof. The predestined are those who actu- 
ally attain to eternal salvation. Of the “faith- 
ful,”’ 7. e., those who have the true faith, many are 
Sa ertunately lost. 

a) Predestinarianism was taught by Calvin, 
and also by the younger Jansenius, who hereti- 


30 In connection with the Sacrament of Penance. 


6 


76 THE WORK OF, REDEMPTION 


cally asserted that “ It savours of Semi-Pelagian- 
ism to say that Christ died, or shed His blood, 
for all men without exception.” * This proposi- 
tion was censured as “‘false, foolhardy, and scan- 
dalous” by Innocent X, who added that, “under- 
stood in the sense that Christ died for the salva- 
tion of the predestined only,” Jansenius’ thesis is 
furthermore “impious, blasphemous... and 
heretical.” Consequently it must be accepted as 
an article of faith that Christ died also for those 
who were not predestined. These are the “faith- 
ful,” 1. e. (in the New Testament) all who have 
received the Sacrament of Baptism, be they in- 
fants or adults. For all baptized Christians are 
bound to accept the Creed, which says that Christ 
“descended from Heaven for us men and for our 
salvation.” ? 

b) Sacred Scripture is so clear on this point 
that we may well marvel at the existence of 
Predestinarianism. St. Paul must have had the 
“faithful” in mind when he wrote to the Thes- 
salonians: ‘For God hath not appointed us 
unto wrath, but unto the purchasing of salva- 
tion by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us.” * 
Again, Christ Himself, assuredly the most faith- 


1“Semipelagianum est dicere, 2“... qui propter nos homines 
Christum pro omnibus omnino ho- et propter nostram salutem de- 
minibus mortuum esse aut sanguinem  scendit de coelis.’’ 
fudisse.” Prop. Damn. TIansenti, 5 81 Thess. V, 9 sq. 


_ (Denzinger-Bannwart, LEnchiridion, 
n, 1096). 


CHRIST DIED FOR ALL 77 


ful exponent of the Divine Will, in the touching 
prayer which He pronounced as the High Priest 
of humanity, included all the faithful,—in fact, 
indirectly, the whole human race. Cf. John 
XVII, 20 sq.: “Non pro eis [scil. A postolis | 
autem rogo tantum, sed et pro eis qui credituri 
sunt* per verbum eorum in me, ... ut credat 
mundus,” quia tu me misisti — And not for them 
[7. e., the Apostles] only do I pray, but for them 
also who through their word shall believe in me; 
. .. that the world may believe that thou hast 
sent me.” 

c) The teaching of the Fathers on this point 
is copiously expounded by Petavius,® and we 
need not expatiate on it here.” 


Thesis II: Christ died for all men without excep- 
tion. 


This thesis may be qualified as “saltem fidei 
proxima.” 

Proof. The Provincial Council of Quiercy 
(A.D. 853) defined against Gottschalk: “As 
there never was, is or will be any man whose 
nature was not assumed by our Lord Jesus 
Christ, so there never was, is or will be any man 
for whom He has not suffered: though not all 


4 trept TOV TierTevévTwy. Augustine’s teaching by the Jansen- 
Siva 6 KOaMos Tio TEVTY: ists consult Dechamps, De Haeresi 
6 De Incarn., XIII, 2 sq. Janseniana, 1, II, disp. 7. 


7 On the misrepresentation of St. 


78 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


are redeemed by the mystery of His passion.” ° 
Pope Alexander VIII, A. D. 1690, formally con- 
demned the proposition that “Christ gave Him- 
self for us as an oblation to God, not for the 
elect only, but for all the faithful, and for the 
faithful alone.” ® The Tridentine Council defines 
the dogmatic teaching of the Church on this point 
as follows: ‘Him [Christ] God hath proposed 
as a propitiator, through faith in His blood, for 
our sins; and not for our sins only, but also for 
those of the whole world.” *° 

a) This Tridentine teaching is thoroughly 
Scriptural, in fact it is couched in the very lan- 
guage of Holy Writ. Cir, 1 John Il, 2: es 
ipse est propitiatio ** pro peccatis nostris, non pro 
nostris autem tantum, sed etiam pro totius 
mundi *— He is the propitiation for our sins: 
and not for ours only, but also for those of the 
whole world.” 1 Tim. II, 6 must be interpreted 
in consonance with the text just quoted. “Om 


8 “Christus Iesus D. N., sicut nul- 
lus homo est, fuit vel erit, cuius na- 
tura in illo assumpta non fuerit, ita 
nullus est, fuit vel erit homo, pro 
quo passus non fuerit, licet non 
omnes passionis eius mysterio re- 
dimantur.”’ The controversies inci- 
dent to the Council of Valence (A. 
D. 855) were due to a nrsunder- 
standing. Cfr. B. Dérholt, Die 
Lehre von der Genugtuung Christi, 
Pp. 323 sad. 

9%... dedit semetipsum pro no- 
bis oblationem Deo, non pro solis 


electis, sed pro omnibus et solis fide- 
libus.”? (Denzinger-Bannwart, En- 
chiridion, n. 1294.) 

10“‘Hunc proposuit Deus propi- 
tiatorem per fidem in sanguine ip- 
sius pro peccatis nostris, non solum 
autem pro nostris, sed etiam pro to- 
tius mundi.’ Conc. Trid., Sess. VI, 
cap. 2 (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 


794). 


11 iNaouds. 
124\AG Kal mepl dou Tov Kéc- 
ov. 


CHRIST DIED FOR ALL 79 


dedit redemptionem semetipsum pro omnibus 
[scil. hominibus] —Who gave himself a redemp- 
tion for all [1 e., for all men].’ The context 
shows that St. Paul means to emphasize the 
universality of God’s will to save all men. We 
may also point in confirmation of our thesis to 
such passages as 2 Cor. V, 14, in which the 
Apostle numbers among the elect such as are still 
in the state of original sin as well as those who 
are justified. “Si unus pro omnibus *® mortuus 
est, ergo omnes ** mortut sunt —If one died for 
all, then all are dead.” * _ 

b) The Jansenists did not deny that the 
Fathers who wrote before Pelagius clearly taught 
the vicarious atonement to be as universal as 
God’s will to save mankind, 7. ¢., that it embraces 
all human beings without exception. But they 
claimed that a change came with St. Augustine, 
who succumbed to the evil influence of Predesti- 
narianism. It is to be noted that the famous 
African Doctor was warmly defended against 
this calumnious charge by one of his contempo- 
faneous disciples, St. Prosper of Aquitaine.® 


13 brép mdayrwr. 

140i maypres, 

15 For an explanation of this text 
see Al. Schafer, Erklirung der bei- 
den Briefe an die Korinther, pp. 
439 sqq., Munster 1903. 

16 We cannot enter into the con- 
troversy here. The student ‘will 
find it exhaustively treated “by Dor- 


holt, Lehre von der Genugiuung 
Christi, Paderborn 1896, pp. 317 
sqq., by Tricassin, De Praedestina:- 
tione, p. I, sect. 7, punct. 4 sqq., 
and by Franzelin, De Deo Uno, 
thes. 32, Rome i883. The fate of 
unbaptized infants will be discussed 
in Vol. VII of this series, 


80 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


Thesis III: The atonement did not benefit the 


fallen angels. 


This proposition is de fide. 

Proof. Origen taught that Christ also died 
for the demons, who were destined at some fu- 
ture time to be released from hell. This error 
: mdvtov) was Closely related to 
another, harbored by the same learned but 
erratic divine, viz.; that the Logos assumed the 
form of an angel to redeem the lost angels, just © 
as He became man to redeem sinful humanity. 
These vagaries were condemned as heretical by 
a council held at Constantinople in 543, and 
again by the Fifth Ecumenical Council, A. D. 
553: 

The dogma embodied in our present thesis is 
intimately bound up with that concerning the 
fall of the angels and their eternal banishment 
from Paradise.** Being condemned to everlast- 
ing hell-fire, the evil spirits can have no share in 
the merits of the Redeemer. ‘For although there 
is assigned to angels also perdition in the fire pre- 
pared for the Devil and his angels,’ says Ter- 
tullian, “yet a restoration was never promised 


- 
( ATOKATACTAOCLS 


17 Cfr. Denzinger, Enchiridion, General Council in 553, though the 


ed. 9, n. 193 and 198 Fr. Diekamp 
(Die origenistischen Streitigkeiten 
im 6. Jahrhundert und das V. allge- 
meine Konzil, Minster 1899) has put 
a quietus on an ancient controversy 
by showing that Origenism was con- 
demned both by the Council of Con- 
stantinople in 543 and by the Fifth 


' the fact. 


acta of the latter do not mention 
Cfr, Chr. ~Pesch,) 3S. “Ji, 
Theologische Zeitfragen, Vol. II, 
Freiburg 1901. 

18 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God the Au- 
thor of Nature and the Supernat- 
ural, pp. 340 sqq 


\ 


WHY SOME ARE LOST 81 


them. No charge about the salvation of angels 
did Christ ever receive from the Father; and 
that which the Father neither promised nor com- 
manded, Christ could not have undertaken.” 1% 


Thesis IV: The doctrine of the universality of the 
atonement is not disproved by the fact that many 
human beings are eternally lost. 


This proposition may be qualified as theolog- 
ically certain. 

Proof. The Council of Trent teaches: Stati 
though He died for all, yet not all receive the 
benefit of His death, but those only unto whom 
the merit of His Passion is communicated.” 2° 

According to Holy Scripture, the universality 
of Christ’s vicarious atonement is not absolute 
but conditional. Those only are saved who com- 
ply with the conditions necessary for participat- 
ing in the fruits of the Redemption, viz.: bap- 
tism, faith, contrition, codperation with grace, 
perseverance. Cfr. Mark XVI, 16: “Qui credi- 
derit et baptizatus fuerit, salvus erit; qui vero 
non crediderit, condemnabitur —He that be- 
lieveth and is baptized, shall-be saved; but he 
that believeth not shall be condemned.” 


“19 De Carne Christi, ec. 14.—Cfr. 20“Verum etsi ille pro omnibus | 
Dorholt, Lehre von der Genugtuung  mortuus est, non omnes tamen eius 
Christi, pp. 353 sqq.—On the partici- beneficium recipiunt, sed i dum- 
pation of the good angels in the  taxat, quibus meritum passionis com- 
merits of the Redeemer see Pohle-  municatur.”’ Sess. VI, cap. Gy 
Preuss, Christology, pp. 243 saq Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 795. 


82 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


“The blood of thy Lord,” observes St. Augus- 
tine, “is given for thee, if thou wilt; if thou wilt 
not, it is not given for thee.” ** 


Theologians distinguish between God’s antecedent and 
His consequent will to save men. Antecedently He 
. willed to save all men without exception, even those who 
are lost ; voluntate consequenti, however, the damned are 
in fact, though not in principle, excluded from the fruits 
of the Redemption. It is correct to say, however, in 
spite of this limitation, that Christ also died for the 
damned, both past and future, because they are lost 
through their own fault. 

The atonement may be regarded as universal from 
still another point of view. Satisfaction is either merely 
sufficient or efficacious. It is sufficient if it provides 
adequate means of salvation. It is efficacious if these 
means are appropriated and utilized by those to whom 
they are offered. Catholic divines unanimously teach 
that Christ died for all men secundum suficientiam, 
non tamen secundum efficaciam, It is indeed quite ob- 
vious that if a man neglects to appropriate the fruits of 
the Redemption, he derives no more benefit therefrom 
than one who is dying of thirst receives from a spring 
within his reach but from which he refuses to drink. 
“ Although [Christ] by His death made sufficient satis- 
faction for the sins of the human race,” says St. Thomas, 
“yet each individual man must seek for the remedies 
whereby to work out his own salvation. The death of 
Christ may in a manner be called the universal cause of 
salvation, like as the sin of the first man was, after a 
fashion, the universal cause of damnation. But it is nec- 
essary that the universal cause be applied to each one 

21 Serm., 344, fl. 4. 


WHY SOME ARE LOST 83 


in particular, that each may participate in its effect. 
The effect of the sin of our first parents descends to 
each one of us by the propagation of the flesh, while 
the effect of our Saviour’s death comes to each by spir- 
itual regeneration . . . and therefore it is necessary that 
each individual human being should seek to be regenerated 
through Christ and to employ all other means whereby the | 
death of Christ becomes efficacious.” 22. In other words, 
the atonement is universal only with regard to its objec- 
tive value or sufficiency, not in respect of its subjective 
application or efficaciousness. } 


22° Quamvis autem  sufiicienter 
bro peccatis humani generis sua 
morte satisfecerit, sunt tamen uni- 
cuique remedia propriae salutis 
quaerenda. Mors enim Christi est 
quasi quaedam wuniversalis causa 
salutis, sicut peccatum primi ho- 
minis fuit quasi universalis causa 
damnationis. Oportet autem uni- 
versalem causam applicari ad unum- 
gquodque specialiter, ut effectum uni- 
versalis causae participet. Effectus 


igitur peccatt primi parentis pervenit 
ad unumquemque per carnis ori- 
ginem, effectus autem mortis Christi 
pertingit ad unumquemque per spi- 
ritualem regenerationem ... et ideo 
oportet quod unusquisque quaerat 
regenerart per Christum et alia sus- 
cipere, in quibus virtus mortis 
Christi operatur.”’ Contra Gent., 
IV, 55, sub. fin. 

23 Cfr. Dorholt, op. cit., pp. 30 
Sqdqd-, 330 sqq. : 


SECTION 3 


THE CONCRETE REALIZATION OF CHRIST’S VICA- 
RIOUS ATONEMENT 


In the two preceding Sections we have shown that 
the atonement was real and intrinsically as well as ex- 
trinsically perfect. The question now arises: What 
were the specific actions by which the Godman made satis- 
faction for our sins? Or, to express it in simpler terms, 
How did Christ redeem us? We pray: “ By Thy holy 
Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.” This does not 
imply that our Divine Saviour’s previous actions had 
no reference to the purpose of the Redemption. His 
whole life, from His conception to His death on the 
Cross, was a chain of expiatory actions, each in itself 
sufficient to redeem the world in actu primo. But it 
was an essential feature of the scheme of salvation that 
in actu secundo, 1. é., actually, no satisfaction was accept- 
able but that which had its consummation in the trag- 
edy on Golgotha. 

In the present Section, therefore, we shall first treat 
of Christ’s Death on the Cross (Article 1) and then of 
two subsequent events of peculiar soteriological import, 
viz.: His Descent into Hell (Article 2) and His Glori- 
ous Resurrection (Article 3). 


84 


_CHRIST’S DEATH 85, 


ARTICLES 


CHRIST'S DEATH ON THE CROSS 


We are here considering the death of our Di- 
vine Redeemer notas a sacrifice, but merely as the 
means of our salvation. It was by His passion 
and death that Jesus actually redeemed mankind. 
The circumstance that His death was a bloody 
sacrifice constitutes Him a priest; this aspect of 
the matter will receive due attention in Part II, 
Chapter 1, infra. 

I. CuRIst’s DEATH THE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF 
OUR REDEMPTION.—In view of the central posi- 
tion which the Cross of Christ occupies in the 
history of the Redemption, the Tridentine Coun- 
cil asserted a truth self-evident to every Christian 
when it defined: “Of this justification the causes 
are these: the final cause indeed is the glory of 


God and of Jesus Christ, . . . while the efficient 
cause is a merciful God; . . . but the meritorious 
cause 1s His most beloved only-begotten Son, our 
Lord Jesus Christ, who . . . merited justification 


for us by His most holy Passion on the wood of 


the Cross and made satisfaction for us to God the 
Father.”’ 1 


1“Huius iustificationis causae  Tesus Christus, qui... sud sanctis- 
sunt finalis quidem gloria Dei et  simd passione in ligno crucis nobis 
Christi, ... efficiens vero miseri-  iustificationem meruit et pro nobis 
cors Deus, ... meritoria autem di- Deo Patri [scil. per appropria- 


lectissimus Unigenitus suus D. N, tionem]  satisfectt.’ Conc. Trid., 


86 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


So important a dogma must loom large in the 
New Testament and be at least foreshadowed in 
the Old. | 

a) Apart from certain Old Testament types 
(such as the sacrifice of Isaac, the scapegoat, the 
brazen serpent, etc.),? the Messianic prophecies 
afford numerous intimations of the bloody pas- 
sion and death of the future Messias. Most of 
these occur in the prophecies of Isaias and the 
Book of Psalms. Isaias, in speaking of the satis- 
faction rendered by the “servant of the Lord,” ® 
invariably describes it as a dolorous passion fol- 
lowed by death.* The 21st Psalm characterizes 
salvation as the outcome of intense tribulation and 
suffering. “But I am a worm, and no man; the 
reproach of men, and the outcast of the people. 
All they that saw me have laughed me to scorn: 
they have spoken with the lips, and wagged the 
head... . My strength is dried up like a pot- 
sherd, and my tongue hath cleaved to my jaws: 
and thou hast brought me down into the dust of 
death. . . . They have dug my hands and feet. 
They have numbered all my bones. And they 
have looked and stared upon me. They parted 
my garments amongst them; and upon my ves- 
ture they cast lots.” ° 


Sess. VI, cap. 7 (Denzinger-Bann- 
wart, n. 799). 

2 On these and other types of the 
suffering Messias see A, J. Maas, S. 
J., Christ in Type and Prophecy, 
Vol. II, pp. 322-343. 


8 Is. XLII, 1-9; XLIX, 1 sqq.; L, 
4 sqq., LIII, 4 sqq. Cfr. Maas, 
op. cit., Vol. Il,-pp. 231 sqa. 

4 See supra, pp. 46 sq. 

5 Ps. XXI, 7 sqq. Cfr. Maas, op. 
cit., Vol. II, pp. 264-287. 


CHRIST’S DEATH 87 


b) The New Testament fairly swarms with — 
passages in support of the dogma. Christ Him- 
self says: “Filius hominis non venit ministrari, 
sed ministrare, et dare animam suam redemp- 
tionem* pro multis—The Son of man is not 
come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and 
to give his life a redemption for many.”7 And 
again: “Sic enim Deus dilexit mundum, ut 
Filium suum unigenitum daret,® ut omnis qui 
credit in eum, non pereat, sed habeat vitam aeter- 
nam — God so loved the world, as to give his 
only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in 
him, may not perish, but may have life everlast- 
ing.”’® St. Paul attests the same truth in some- 
what different terms. “Qui etiam proprio Filio 
suo non pepercit,” he says, “sed pro nobis omni- 
bus tradidit *° illum —He spared not even his 
own Son, but delivered him up for us all.” ™ 
The notion that Christ died for us on the Cross 
assumes concrete form in the shedding of His 
blood “unto the remission of sins.” !2 Hence 
the well-known Pauline axiom, “Sine sanguinis 
effusione non fit remissio *— Without shedding 
of blood there is no remission.” ‘4 Therefore, 
too, subjective salvation, i. e., the application of 


6 \Urpoy = ransom. 11 Rom. VIII, 32. 

7 Matth. XX, 28. 12 Cfr. Matth, XXVI, 28. 

8 éSwxer. 13 Kail xwpls aluarexxvolas ob 
9 John IIT, 16, yiverar ddecis. 


10 rapedwxer, 14 Heb. IX, 22, 


88 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


the fruits of the Redemption to the individual 
soul, is described as “the sprinkling of the blood 
of Jesus Christ,” *? and the Redemption was not 
“consummated” until Christ gave up the ghost.*® 

2. THE CONGRUITY OF CHRIST'S DEATH ON 
THE Cross.—lIt was fitting that Christ should die 
for us on the Cross. The reasons are admirably 
developed by St. Thomas.** We must confine 
ourselves to a summary of the most important of 
them. 


a) It would have been unbecoming for the Redeemer to 
die of old age or disease,1* or to fall beneath the blows 
of an assassin. His high office as Saviour of the human 
race demanded that He should die a public death. In no 
other way could He have so effectively sealed the truth of 
His teaching. Nothing could have been more conducive 
to the spread of His Gospel than His bloody martyrdom, 
which contained within itself the proof of His teaching 
and power. The fact that He met death unflinchingly 
gained for Him a greater number of enthusiastic ad- 
herents than many years of teaching could have done. 
What is the poison cup that Socrates put to his lips in 
comparison with the agony suffered by Jesus Christ? 
His reward was proportionate to the magnitude of His 
suffering. This consideration (namely, that He merited 
His glorification by intense suffering) implies a profound 
teleology, which may be truly termed divine. 


151 Pet. I, 2: “aspersionem san- is developed by Tepe, Inst. Theol., 
guinis Jesu Christi.”” Cfr. Heb. Vol. III, pp. 651 sqq. 


DX 93, sq. 17S. Theol., 3a, qu. 46, art. 1-4, 
16 “Consummatum est.” John TTS. QU.2475 abt 4% ou. 50; afta t. 
XIX, 30.—The Patristic argument 18 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Christology, 


pp. 81 sqq. 


CHRIST’S DEATH 89 


b) In regard to those for whom He gave up His life, 
Christ could not have selected a more congruous manner 
of dying than that which He actually chose. The path of 
Christian perfection runs between two poles — hatred 
of sin and the practice of virtue. From both points of 
view the cruel drama enacted on Golgotha was eminently 
effective. The power of sin could not be broken except 
by a strong opposing force. This may be regarded either 
objectively or subjectively. 

a) The sin of our first parents had doomed the human 
race to spiritual death, a terrible penalty which entailed 
the death of the body.® Hence it was eminently proper 
that our Divine Redeemer should by His bodily death de- 
stroy the spell of spiritual death and thereby restore man 
to that corporeal immortality which had been one of the 
prerogatives of the human race in Paradise, but was for- 
feited by sin. There is a striking parallel also between 
the first sinner’s desire to be like unto God and the self- 
humiliation of the Godman, between the “ tree of knowl- 
edge ” and the “ wood of the Cross.” The antithesis be- 
tween Christ’s passion and death on the one hand, and sin 
on the other, may be traced in detail. Thus the unholy 
trinity of vices which we have inherited from our first 
parents — concupiscence of the eyes, concupiscence of the 
flesh, and pride of life — received a tremendous blow by 
the bitter passion and death of our Saviour,— concupis- 
cence of the eyes in the distribution of his garments, 
concupiscence of the flesh in His disrobing and scourg- 
ing, and pride of life in the imposition of the thorny 
crown and the crucifixion. 

_ 8) Nothing could produce a more impressive idea of 
the hideousness of_sin than the contemplation of the 


19 Cfr. Rom. V, 7 sqq. 


90 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


mangled and blood-stained body of our crucified Re- 
deemer.° It is apt to soften the hardest of hearts. 
He who dares to offend God in plain view of the Cross 
is an atrocious villain, because, in the words of St. Paul, 
he does not shrink from “ crucifying again . . . the Son 
of God and making him a mockery.” *4 The height of 
contemplation and the heroic practice of virtue to which 
the medieval mystics attained by meditating on the cruel 
sufferings of our Divine Redeemer, have been and still 
are within the reach of all men. Like St. John many 
have found by experience that love kindles love. “In 
this is charity: not as though we had loved God, but be- 
cause he hath first loved us, and sent his Son to be a pro- 
pitiation for our sins.” ?? 

Our crucified Redeemer is, moreover, a living and at- 
tractive model of all virtue. How would it be possible - 
for us poor weak mortals to be virtuous had we not His 
glorious example to encourage us? Is there anything 
a selfish, effeminate man dreads more than pain and 
death? Yet the Passion of Christ has deprived both of 
their sting. St. Teresa had no other desire than either 
to die or to suffer (aut mori aut pati). Death, too, so 
terrible to human nature, has lost its horrors. With the 
crucifix clasped in his hands and the name of the Re- 
deemer on his lips, the pious Christian calmly commends 
his soul to the Heavenly Father. In the Cross there is 
salvation, the Cross is a haven of refuge.”? 

20 On the extensive and intensive 221 John IV, 1o. 
magnitude of our Lord’s suffering 23 Cfr. the Roman Catechism, 
see Cfr. Pesch, Prael. Dogmat., Vol. Part-I, ch.‘'5, .qu.4, 243- Billuart, 
IV, pp. 267 saqq.; A. Kluge, Das De Myst. Christi, diss. 9, art. 1, and 
Seelenleiden des Welterlésers, Mainz Oswald, Die Erlésung in Christo 


1905. Jesu, Vol. II, §5, Paderborn 1887. 
21 Heb. VI, 6. 


CHRIST’S DESCENT INTO HELL Or 


ARTICLE 2 


CHRIST’S DESCENT INTO HELL 


The Oriental and the ancient Roman versions 
of the so-called Apostles’ Creed do not mention 
Christ’s Descent into hell. But the doctrine is 
contained in the Spanish, Gallic, and Aquilean re- 
censions and in the symbol “Quicunque,” wrongly 
attributed to St. Athanasius. Hence the descen- 
sus ad mferos is commonly regarded as an article 
of faith, The Fourth Lateran Council CARD: 
1215) teaches somewhat more explicitly: “He 
descended into hell, . .. but He descended in 
soul and arose in flesh, and ascended equally 
in Doth.’ 

Durandus contended that the soul of Christ de- 
scended into hell dynamically but not substan- 
tially. This opinion was censured as heretical by 
Suarez.? And justly so; for it can be effectively 
refuted from Sacred Scripture. The same is true 
of Calvin’s absurd notion * that Christ before and 
after His agonizing death suffered the tortures 
of the damned. Bah: 

The nature of the place into which our Lord 
descended has never been dogmatically defined, 


1“ Descendit ad ANTCTHOS,. od zinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 
sed descendit in anima et resurrexit 429.) 
im carne: ascenditque pariter in 2De Myst. Vitae Christi, disp. 43, 
utroque.” Caput “Firmiter.’’ (Den- SeChNS Linh iias 


3 Inst., II, 16, 1o. 


7 


\ 


Q2 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


but it is theologically certain that it was the so- 
called limbus patrum (sinus Abrahae). 

1. ProoF OF THE DOGMA FROM SACRED SCRIP- 
TURE AND TRADITION.—The dogma of Christ’s 
Descent into hell is clearly contained both in 
Sacred Scripture and Tradition. 

a) Ps. XV, 10: “Non derelinques animam 
meam in inferno, nec dabis Sanctum tuum videre 
corruptionem — Thou wilt not leave my soul in 
hell, nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see cor- 
ruption.” This text contains a convincing argu- 
ment for our dogma, because St. Peter directly 
applies it to Christ: “Providens [David] locutus 
est de resurrectione Christi, quia neque derelictus 
est in inferno neque caro eius vidit corruptionem 
— Foreseeing this, he [David] spoke of the resur- 
rection of Christ. For neither was he left in hell, 
neither did his flesh see corruption.’”° The 
Greek term which the Vulgate renders by m- 
fernum is ys. It cannot mean grave, as Beza 
contended, because the soul of Christ was not 
buried; nor can it mean death (which is Calvin's 
interpretation), because the soul of Christ did not 
die. It must refer to a locality where the soul of 
our Lord sojourned until it was reunited with His 
“uncorrupted flesh” at the Resurrection.° 


4 rhp Wuxi els Gdou- 6-12; Maas, Christ in Type and 
5 Acts II, 31. Cfr. Acts XIII, 35. Prophecy, Vol. I, pp. 140 sqq.; Vol. 
6 Cfr. Bellarmine, De Christo, 1V, I, pp. 358 sdq.. SP. BP. 372+ 


CHRIST’S DESCENT INTO HELL _93 


This interpretation is confirmed by the teaching of 
St. Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians: “Now that — 
he ascended, what is it, but because he also descended 
first into the lower parts of the earth?? He that de- 
scended is the same also that ascended above all the 
heavens, that he might fill all things.” ® Christ’s as- 
cension here can only mean His return to Heaven. Con- 
sequently, the word descend, in contradistinction to as- 
cend, must here be understood in a local sense. This is 
rendered all the more probable by the fact that the phrase 
imfertores partes terrae cannot be applied to Christ’s 
burial, and still less metaphorically to the Incarnation. 
For the rest, St. Peter, (in a somewhat obscure passage, it 
is true),° explicitly observes that the soul of Christ 
“preached ?° to those spirits that were in prison,’— 
hence it must have been substantially present in a partic- 
ular place, 7. e., the limbo. 


b) The Tradition in support of our dogma is 
as ancient as it is positive. 


St. Irenzeus says: “ For three days He dwelt in the 
place where the dead were.” Tertullian mentions 
Christ’s Descent into hell in several passages of his 
works. We shall quote but one. “Nor did He ascend 
into the heights of heaven before descending into the 
lower parts of the earth, that He might there make the 
patriarchs and prophets partakers of Himself.” 22 St. 
Augustine speaks with the authority of both Scripture 


Tels ra KaTarepa wépn TAS Y7s. 
“8 Eph. IV, 9 sq. 

81 Pet. ITI, 18 sqq. 

10 €xypuée, praedicavit, 

11“Nunc autem tribus diebus 
conversatus est, ubi erant mortui.” 


Adv. Haereses, V, 31, 1; cfr. also 
Adv. Haereses, IV, 27, 2. 

12“ Nec ante ascendit in sublimi- 
ora coelorum, quam descendit in in- 
feriora terrarum, ut illic patriarchas 
et prophetas compotes sui faceret.” 
De Anima, c. 55; cfr. also c, 4,7: 


04 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


and Tradition when he says: “Who but an unbeliever 
would deny that Christ was in the nether world?” * 


2, MEANING OF THE TERM “HELL.” —Infer- 
num. (ns, xarérara, Hebrew, 28Y) may designate 
either (a) hell in the strict sense of the term, 
i. e., the abode of the reprobates (gehenna) ; or 
(b) a place of purification after death, commonly 
called purgatory (purgatorium); or (c) the 
biding place of children who have died unbaptized 
(limbus infantium); or (d) the abode of the 
just men who lived before the coming of Christ 
(limbus patrum). To which of these four places 
did Christ descend? 

a) The soul of our Lord did not descend to the 
abode of the damned. 


Calvin’s blasphemous assertion that the soul of Christ, 
from the beginning of His sacred Passion in the Garden 
of Gethsemane to the Resurrection, dwelled in the abode 
of the damned, and there suffered the poena damni, is 
based on an untenable exaggeration of the notion of 
vicarious atonement.‘ It is nof true, as Calvin held, 
that Christ’s Descent into hell constituted the climax 
of the atonement. The atonement culminated on the 
Cross. (“Consummatum est.’) Nor can we conceive 
of any reasonable motive why our Lord should have 
descended into the gehenna of the damned. The hu- 
man beings confined in that awful dungeon were abso- 

13 “Quis ergo nisi infidelis nega- P. io KXXALE ete). 


verit fuisse apud inferos Christum?” 14 Cfr. Bellarmine, De Christo, 
Ep. 104 ad Evodium, c. 2, 3 (Migne, Myce 


ee 2 = ‘ 
SN ae a 


CHRIST’S DESCENT INTO HELL 95 


lutely -irredeemable, even as the demons themselves. 
Moreover, a personal sojourn in hell would have been re- 
pugnant to the dignity of the Godman. St. Augustine 
does not hesitate to stigmatize as heretical the proposi- 
tion that “ When Christ descended into hell, the tinbe- 
lieving believed and all were set free.” 1° The “ triumph 
.over hell”? which the Church celebrates in her Easter 
hymns did not require the substantial presence there of 
our Lord’s soul; it was accomplished by His virtual or 
dynamic presence, 7. e., the exercise of His divine, power. 

Certain ancient ecclesiastical writers 17 held that on the 
occasion of His Descent Christ rescued from eternal tor- 
ture the souls of certain pious heathens, e. g., Socrates 
and Plato. This theory does not contradict the dogma 
that the pains of hell are eternal, as Suarez contends; but 
it must nevertheless be rejected as unfounded; first, be- 
cause without positive proof to the contrary we are not 
permitted to assume an exception, and secondly, because 
there is no ground whatever for the assumption that these 
pious heathens were condemned to hell rather than rele- 
gated to the limbus patrum. 


b) There is another opinion, held by several 
reputable theologians, viz., that the soul of Christ 
appeared personally in purgatory to console the 
poor souls and to admit them to the beatific vision. 


We may let this pass as a “ pious opinion,” provided its 
defenders refrain from denying that Christ also descended 
into the limbus patrum. But even with this limitation we 
can hardly admit that the theory is based on sufficient 


15 V. supra, Sect. 2, Art. 2, The-  feros credidisse incredulos et omnes 
Sis 4. exinde liberatos.” De Haer., 79. 
16 “Descendente Christo “ad in- 17 E. g., Clement of Alexandria 
and Origen. 


96 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


evidence. Two weighty arguments speak against it. It 
is a fundamental law of divine justice that whoever neg- 
lects to render satisfaction in this life must inevitably suf- 
fer in the next (satispassio), and Sacred Scripture affords 
no warrant for assuming that an exception was made 
in this instance, say after the manner of a plenary indul- 
gence in commemoration of the Redemption. On the 
other hand it is highly improbable that all the inmates 
of purgatory should have finished the process of purifi- 
cation at exactly the same moment. In view of these 
considerations St. Thomas holds that the (merely vir- 
tual) presence of our Lord in purgatory resulted in noth-_ 
ing more than giving to the poor souls temporarily im- 
prisoned there “ the hope of an early beatitude.” ** The 
only exception the Angelic Doctor is disposed to make is 
in favor of those “ who were already sufficiently purged, 
or who during their lifetime had by faith and devotion to 
the death of Christ merited the favor of being released 
from the temporal sufferings of purgatory on the occasion 
of His descent.” *® 


c) Was it perhaps the limbus puerorum, 1. é., 
the abode of children who die in the state of orig- 
inal sin, into which our Saviour descended? It 
is difficult to see for what reason He should have 
gone there. | 


He could not benefit the souls of these children, be- 
cause they have once for all arrived at their destination. 


18. Theol., 3a, qu 51, art. 3: viverent, meruerunt per fidem et 


“Tilis vero, qui detinebantur in pur- 
gatorio, spem gloriae consequendae 
dedit.” ‘ 
19“... qui tam sufficienter pur- 
gati erant, vel etiam qui, dum adhuc 


devotionem ad mortem Christi, ut 
eo descendente liberarentur a tem- 
porali purgatorii poena.’”’ (Ibid.) 
Cfr. Billuart, De Myst. Christi, diss. 
WI, cart. 3: 


CHRIST’S DESCENT INTO HELL 97 


Nor can He have désited to triumph over them, be- 
cause the fact that they are deprived of the beatific 
vision is not due to any malice on their part, but simply 
and solely to original sin contracted by their descent 
from Adam. As these infants are absolutely irredeem- 
able in virtue of Christ’s voluntas salvifica consequens,?° 
we cannot even assume the existence of a special priv- 
ilege in their favor. That which is impossible cannot 
be made the subject-matter of a privilege, not even at so 
solemn a juncture as the death of our Saviour.2t Their 
fate does not involve cruelty nor injustice on the part 
of God, because, though deprived of the beatific vision, 
they enjoy a certain measure of natural happiness.”? 


d) Consequently, the only place to which the 
soul of Christ can have descended during the 
triduum intervening between His death and the 
Resurrection, is the limbus patrum, sometimes 
also called “bosom of Abraham.” 


The limbus patrum was the place in which the pa- 
triarchs and just men of the Old Testament, together 
with those heathens who had died in the state of grace, 
after having been cleansed from all stain of sin in purga- 
tory, dwelled in the expectation of the beatific vision. 
That such a place existed we conclude from Heb. IX, 8: 
“The way into the holies [i. ¢., Heaven] 7° was not yet 


20 V. supra, Sect. 2, Art. 2, The- 
sis 4. 

21 Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, 
qu. 52, art. 7: “Pueri autem, qui 
cum originali peccato decesserant, 
nullo modo fuerant coniuncti pas- 
siont Christi per fidem et dilec- 
tionem. Neque enim fidem pro- 
priam habere potuerant, quia non 
habuerunt usum liberi  arbitrii, 


neque per fidem parentum aut per 
aliquod fidet sacramentum [scil. bap- 
tismum] fuerant a peccato originalt 
mundati. Et ideo descensus Christi 
ad inferos huiusmodi pueros non li- 
beravit ab inferno.” 

22 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God the 
Author of Nature and the Super- 
natural, pp. 300 sqq. - 

23 Cir. Heb. X, 19. 


98 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


made manifest, whilst the former tabernacle [i. e., the 
Old Testament] was yet standing,” ‘We may also infer 
the (former) existence of such a place from the fact that 
Holy Scripture adverts to a state of imprisonment as an 
intermediary stage on the way to Heaven. 


3. SPECULATIONS REGARDING THE LOCATION 
OF THE Limso.— The word limbo, which is de- 
rived from limbus, properly signifies edge or bor- 
der. It owes its use as a technical term in theol- 
ogy to the ancient belief that the abode of the 
patriarchs was situated on the confines of hell, 
somewhere near the surface of the earth. Dante 
and Milton place the limbo at the outermost circle 
of hell.?* Since the geocentric has been sup- 
planted by the Copernican world-view, we know 
that the ancient notions of ‘“‘above” and “below” 
are purely relative. Hence the traditional view 
with regard to the site of hell and the limbo does 
not appertain to the substance of dogma. The 
meagre data furnished by Revelation do not 
enable us to draw up a topographical map of 
the nether world. We know no more about the 
whereabouts of hell than we know about the 
location of what was once the limbo .of the 
Fathers. The theological arguments of certain 
Scholastic writers, based on the geocentric con- 
ception of the universe, can claim no probability, 
much less certitude.” 


24 Milton, Paradise Lost, III, 440 25 On the limbo see P. J. Toner 
sqq. in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 


CHRIST’S: DESCENT) INTOJHELE 99 


4. THE SOTERIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF 
Curist’s DESCENT Into Hett.—Christologically — 
our Lord’s Descent into hell must be conceived 
as an intermediary stage between glorification 
and abasement. It partook of abasement in 
respect of the external circumstance of place, but 
it did not entail upon His human nature any 
substantial or intrinsic alteration.2* From the 
soteriological point of view the question as to 
the meaning of Christ’s Descent into hell re- 
solves itself into another, namely, What was its 
object or purpose? 

What can have been our Saviour’s purpose in 
visiting the patriarchs? We may safely assume 
that His descent stood in some sort of relation to 
the redemption of the human race which He had 
just accomplished. It must have aimed at their 
beatification, for the limbo contained no repro- 
bates. St. Paul applies the text Ps. NLL: 
“Ascendens in altum captivam duxit captivita- 
tem~’ to the inmates of the limbo, —as if he 
wished to say: Ascending into Heaven Christ 
leads away with Him those who had been impris- 
oned in the limbo.?” 


We are informed of the object of our Lord’s De- 
scent into the limbo by St. Peter, who says in his 
IX, pp. 256 sqq.; Mamachi, De 26 Cfr, H. Simar, Dogmatik, Vol. 


Animabus Iustorum in Sinu Abrahae I, 3rd ed., p. 538, Freiburg 1899. 
ante Christi Mortem, Rome 1706. 27 Cfr. Eph. IV, 8 


100 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


first Epistle: °8 “[Christ was] put to death indeed in 
the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit, in which also coming 
he preached to those spirits that were in prison: ?® which 
had been some time incredulous,°° when they waited for 
the patience of God in the days of Noe, when the ark 
was a-building.” This text is admittedly difficult of in- 
terpretation ;* but despite a certain obscurity, its gen- 
eral drift is discernable. The Apostle evidently means 
to say that Christ personally approached * the spirits or 
souls of those who were imprisoned in the limbo and 
preached ** to them. What and why did he preach to 
them? To assume that He tried to convert the damned 
would contradict the revealed truth that there is no 
salvation for those condemned to hell. Can it have 
been His purpose to assure them of their damnation? 
This hypothesis is equally untenable, because a little fur- 
ther down in his text St. Peter expressly describes 
Christ’s preaching (xjpvypa) as a “ gospel,” which means 
a message of joy. ‘ Nexpois edyyyeAioOn,” these are his 
words —* the gospel was preached to the dead.” 34 The 
“gospel” which our Lord preached to the inmates of 
limbo must have been the glad tidings that their im- 
prisonment was at an end. But whom does St. Peter 
mean when he speaks of “those spirits . . . which had 
been some time incredulous, when they waited for the 
patience of God in the days of Noe”? This is a diffi- 
cult question to answer. But no matter how we may 
choose to interpret the subsidiary clause, the main sen- 
tence is plain enough. Among the just imprisoned in the 
limbo there were also (xat) some who had abused God’s 


281 Pet. III, 18 sqq. 81 Cfr. St. Augustine, Ep. ad 
29é€v @ kal rtois é€v gvdaky Evod., 164. 

mvevpaciv tmopevdels exnpvéer, 32 mropevdels. 
30 drrevOnoacly more. 33 éxnpuéev, praedicavit. 


841 Pet. IV, 6. 


THE’ RESURRECTION IOL 


patience before the Deluge by remaining incredulous till 
the flood overtook them.*® The “ gospel” or joyful mes- 
sage which Christ brought to the inmates of limbo cannot 
have consisted in anything more than the preliminary 
announcement that they were soon to be freed; for their 
formal admission into the heavenly abode of the Blessed 
did not take place till the day of His Ascension.** Never- 
theless, in view of our Lord’s remark to the penitent 
thief: “This day thou shalt be with me in paradise,” 
we must hold that the patriarchs were forthwith ad- 
mitted to the beatific vision of God.*" 


AR TICE (3 


THE RESURRECTION 


I. THE RELATION OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION 
To His Deatu.—Christ’s glorious Resurrection 
may be considered from three distinct points of 
view. 

Apologetically, 7. e., regarded as a historic fact 
establishing His Divinity, it is the bulwark of our 
faith * and the pledge of our own future resurrec- 
tion.” 

Christologically, the Resurrection signalizes 


85 Cfr. Hundhausen, Das erste 


: ty) Cor xv tas 
Pastoralschreiben des Abpostelfiir- 


21 Cor. XV, 13.—For an apol- 


sten Petrus, pp. 343 saq., Mainz 


1873. 
-36 Cfr. Ps, LXVII, 19. 
37 Cfr. the Catechism of the 


Council of Trent, Part I, Ch. 6, Qu. 
6. The reasons why it was meet 
that Christ should descend into hell 
are developed by St. Thomas, S. 
Theol., 3a, qu. 52, art. 1. 


ogetic treatment of the Resurrec- 
tion we refer the student to De- 
vivier-Sasia, Christian Apologetics, 
Vol. I, pp. 197 sqq., San Jose, Cal., 
1903; G, W. B. Marsh, The Resur- 
rection of Christ, Is it a Fact? 
London 1905; and other similar 
treatises, 


102 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


Christ’s entrance into the state of glory which 
He had earned for Himself by His passion and 
death.* | 

Considered from the distinctive viewpoint of 
Soteriology, the Resurrection of Christ was not, 
strictly speaking, the chief, nor even a contrib- 
uting cause of our redemption; * but it was an 
essential complement thereof, and constituted its 
triumphant consummation. 


a) The Catholic Church regards the Resurrection as 
an integral, though not an essential, element of the atone- 
ment. That is why she mourns on Good Friday and cele- 
brates Easter as the great feast of the Redemption. 
“Lastly,” says the Roman Catechism,® “. . . the Resur- 
rection of our Lord was necessary, in order to complete 
the mystery of our salvation and redemption; for by his 
death Christ liberated us from our sins, and by His 
Resurrection he restored to us the principal blessings 
which we had forfeited by sin. Hence it is said by the 
Apostle: “He was delivered up for our sins, and rose 
again for our justification.’® That nothing, therefore, 
might be wanting to the salvation of the human race, it 
was meet that, as He should die, He should also rise 
again.” This teaching is in perfect accord with Sacred 
Scripture, which links the crucifixion of our Lord with 
His Resurrection and represents both events as one in- 
divisible whole. Cfr. Luke XXIV, 46 sq.: “ Thus it is 
written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise 

3 Citi Luke xeariy.', 26... Vv. sue the Cross. (Cfr. supra, pp. 85 saq.) 
pra, pp. 58 sq. 5 Partid,, Chiné; Ou. /r2. 


4 The sole cause of our redemp- 6 Rom. IV, 25. 
tion was the Saviour’s death on 


THE KESURRECGTION 103 
again from the dead, the third day, that penance and 
remission of sins should be preached in his name unto a 
nations.” 7 

b) St. Paul deepened this conception by pointing out 
that the Crucifixion and the Resurrection contain the two 
essential elements of justification — remission of sin and 
infusion of a new life. As Christ died and rose again from 
the dead, so shall we die to sin and arise to spiritual life. 
Cfr. Rom. VI, 6 sqq.: “ Knowing this, that our old man 
is crucified with him, that the body of sin may be de- 
stroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer. For 
he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead 
with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with 
Christ: knowing that Christ rising again from the dead, 
dieth now no more.” The Apostle loved to apply this 
sublime symbolism to the Sacrament of Baptism, in 
which the acts of immersion and emersion emblem both 
the burial and Resurrection of Christ, and the liberation 
from sin and sanctification of the sinner. Cfr. Rom. VI, 
4: “For we are buried together with him by baptism 
into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the 
glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of 
lifes) = 


2. THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST AS A DOGMA. 
—The glorious Resurrection of our Lord is a 
cardinal dogma, nay the very foundation and 
keystone of Christian belief. For this reason the 


8 Cfr. 2 Cor. V, 15. On the sub- 
ject-matter of this subdivision the 
student may profitably -consult St. 


7 Cfr. St. Bonaventure, Comment. 
in. Quatuor Libros Sent., III, dist. 
19, art. 1, qu. 1: “Ratio merendi 


tustificationem attribuitur soli pas- 
sioni, non resurrectioni; ratio vero 
terminandi et quietandi attribuitur 
resurrection, ad quam ordinatur 
‘tustificatio, non passioni.” 


Thomas: .S. Dhéol.;.3a,; aus 56, art. 
2 and H. Simar, Die Theologie des 
hi. Paulus, 2nd ed., pp. 194 sqq., 
Freiburg 1883. 


104. THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


phrase “on the third day He arose again” was 
embodied in all the creeds and reiterated in nu- 
merous doctrinal definitions. 

The Catholic Church has always emphasized 
two distinct points in regard to the Resurrection, 
wig.) (1) dts. reality. or? truth, and: <(?2 athe 
transhgured and glorified state of the risen Re- 
deemer. To safeguard these two aspects of the 
dogma she strenuously insisted on the real re- 
union of Christ’s soul with His body,® and form- 
ally rejected the Origenist teaching of the ethereal 
nature and sphericity of the risen body as well 
as the heresy of its alleged corruptibility. Thus 
the Council of Constantinople (A. D. 543) says: 
“If any one assert that the body of our Lord 
after the Resurrection was ethereal and spherical 
in. oshape.\. det him be. anathema.,) Ane 
the symbol of Pope Leo IX declares that Christ 
arose from the dead on the third day “by a true 
resurrection of the flesh, to confirm which He 
ate with His disciples—not because He stood in 
need of food, but solely by His will and power.” ™ 
All these statements can be convincingly demon- 
strated from Divine Revelation. 

a) Christ had positively predicted that He 
would arise on the third day (cfr. Matth. XII, 40; 


9 Cfr. Conc. Lateran. IV, Caput reum et figura sphaerica, anathema 
“Firmiter“ (supra, p. 91). sit.’ Denzinger’s Enchiridion, 9th 
10 “Si quis dixertt Domini corpus ed., n. 196. 
post resurrectionem fuisse aethe- 11 Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 344. 


THE RESURRECTION 105 


XX) 19) XXVIII, 03; Mark: Xo 34) Luke XV IIS. 
33; John II, 18 sqq.). He proved the reality 
and the truth of His resurrection by repeatedly 
appearing to His disciples, conversing with them, 
allowing them to touch His sacred body, eating 
and drinking with them, and so forth. (Matth. 
MMVI EZ sq-; Luke XXIV; ar saq:s foun 
DOxa ae saq. 7) 1) Cor XV, 6)... The sApostles 
would not have so courageously and uncompro- 
misingly stood up for their faith in the Resur- 
rection had they not seen and conversed with 
tie cisen bord.) Cir Acts IV. 335" And with 
great power *? did the Apostles give testimony 
of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.” * 
Though not an eye-witness, St. Paul was a bold 
and enthusiastic herald of the Resurrection: “If 
Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching 
vain, and your faith is also vain.” ™ 

That Christ rose in a glorified body is evi- 
denced by the circumstances surrounding’ His 
Resurrection,” and by the fact that His risen 
body was endowed with certain attributes which 
man ee enjoy rome in a transfigured 
state.*® 


12 Suvamer weyady, virtute magna. 15 Matth. XXVIII, 1 sqq.; Luke 
. 13 Cfr. Acts II; 22 sqq:; III,’ 15; XXIV, 36 sqq.; John XX, 19 sqq. 
X, 40 sqq.; XIII, 30 sqq. 16 This point will be-developed in 


141 Cor, XV, 14; cfr. Rom. X,9. Eschatology. 


106 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


He retained the marks of His five wounds 1” for reasons 
of congruity, which St. Thomas explains as follows: “It 
was becoming that the soul of Christ in the Resurrection 
should reassume the body with its wounds. First, for the 
glorification of Christ Himself; secondly, to confirm His 
disciples in their faith in the Resurrection; third, that in 
supplicating the Father for us, He might always remind 
Him of what He had suffered for men; fourth to recall 
the divine mercy to those whom He had redeemed, by ex- 
hibiting to them the marks of His death; and, lastly, that 
on Judgment day He might show forth the justice of the 
judgment by which [the wicked] are damned.” 18 

That Christ really and truly rose from the dead in a 
glorified body, is so evident from Sacred Scripture that 
we need not stop to prove it from Tradition.?® 


b) In connection with the Resurrection of our 
Lord the Catholic Church has always held two 
other important truths, vizg.: (1) That His Res- 
urrection is the prototype of a general “resurrec- 
tion of the flesh,’ and (2) that Christ arose by 
His own power. 

Both these truths are clearly taught in the famous 


Creed drawn up by the Eleventh Council of Toledo 
(A. D. 675): “And on the third day, raised up by His 


17 Cir. John XX, 27; Apoc. V, 6. 
18. Sv heok, 3a; ‘qu.’ 64, art... 4% 
“Conveniens fuit animam Christi in 
resurrectione corpus cum cicatrici- 
bus resumere: primo quidem propter 
gloriam ipsius Christi . ..3 secundo 


ad confirmandum corda discipulorum — 


circa fidem suae resurrectionis; ter- 
tio ut. Patri pro nobis supplicans, 
quale genus mortis pro homine per- 


tulerit, semper ostendat; quarto ut 
sua morte redemptis, quam miseri- 
corditer sint adiuti, propositis eius- 
dem mortis indictis insinuet; po- 
stremo ut in iudicio [ultimo], quam 


iuste damnentur, tbidem denuntiet.” ~ 


19 On the whole subject cfr. Billu- 
art, De Myst. Christi, diss. 12, art. 
4 and 6; G. B. Tepe, Inst. Theol., 
Vol. I, pp. 97 sqq., Paris 1894. 


THE RESURRECTION 107 


own power, He rose again from the grave; by virtue of. - 
this example of our Head we profess that there will be a 
resurrection of the flesh for all the dead.” 2° The phrase 
“by His own power” (virtute propria) points to an ac- 
tive rising (resurgere), which is more than a miraculous 
awakening (resuscitari). 

The dogma is clearly contained in Sacred Scripture. 
Cfr. John II, 19: “ Jesus answered and said to them: 
Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it 
up.” 7? John X, 17 sq.: “ Therefore doth the Father 
love me: because I lay down my life, that I may take 
it again. No man taketh it away from me: but I lay 
it down of myself, and I have power to lay it down: 
and I have power to take it up again.” #? 

Christ Himself ascribes this power to His consubstan- 
tiality with the Father. John V, 21: “For as the 
Father raiseth up the dead, and giveth life: so the Son 
also giveth life to whom he will.” 28 Hence, if Holy 
Scripture elsewhere speaks of our Lord’s being raised up 
by the Father, ** this is obviously an appropriation, based 
on the fact that the efficient cause of our Saviour’s Resur- 
rection was not His humanity, which had been resolved 
into its constituent elements by death, but His Divinity, 
which remained hypostatically united with His soul and 
body. The Roman Catechism explains this as follows: 
“There existed a divine energy as well in the body, by 
which it might be reunited to the soul, as in the soul, by 
which it might return again to the body, and by which He, 


20“‘Tertio quoque die virtute pro- 21 evyepa, excitabo, 
prid sua suscitatus a sepulcro resur- 22 éfovglay exw mdr RaGeiv 
vexit; hoc ergo exemplo capitis no- aurhy. : 
strt confitemur veram fiert resurrec- 236 vids ods OéXer (worotei- 
tionem carnis omnium mortuorum.” 24 Acts II, 24 sqq.; III, 13 sqq.; 


Denzinger-Bannwart, n, 286, Rom. VIE, 22;.Gal,.I;°.2. 


108 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION 


by His own power, might return to life and rise again 
from the dead.” *° | 


READINGS : —* Billuart, De Incarnatione, diss. 19-20.— Ipem, De 
Mysterio Christi, diss. g9-12— St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, 3a, 
qu. 19-22; qu. 24, 26; qu. 46-56.— Bellarmine, De Christo, 1. IV, 
c. 6-16; 1. V, c. 1-10—De Lugo, De Mysterio Incarnationis, 
disp. 27 sqq..—* Franzelin, De Verbo Incarnato, sect. 4, Rome 
1881.— Oswald, Soteriologie, 2nd ed., Paderborn 1887.—* Stentrup, 
S. J.. Soteriologia, 2 vols., Innsbruck 1889.—G. B. Tepe, Jnsti- 
tutiones Theologicae, Vol. III, pp. 617 sqq., Paris 1806.— Chr. 
Pesch, S. J., Praelectionés Dogmaticae, Vol. IV, 3d ed., pp. 201 sqq.,: 
Freiburg 1909.— L. Janssens, De Deo-Homine, II, Freiburg 1912. 
— Hunter, Outlines of Dogmatic Theology, Vol. I, pp. 506 sqq., 
London s. a— Wilhelm-Scannell, A Manual of Catholic The- 
ology, Vol. Il, pp. 181-195, 2nd ed., London 1901.— A. Ritter, 
Christus der Erloser, Linz 1903.—*B. Dorholt, Lehre von der 
Genugiuung Christi, Paderborn 1896.— Muth, Heilstat Christi als 
stellvertretenden Genugtuung, Ratisbon 1904—K. Staab, Die 
Lehre von der stellvertretenden Genugtuung, Paderborn 1908.— 
Pell, Lehre des hl. Athanasius von der Siinde und Erlosung, Pas- 
sau 1888.—Strater, Erldsungslehre des hi. Athanasius, Freiburg 
18904.— Weigl,- Heilslehre des hl, Cyrill von Alexandrien, Mainz 
1905.—* J. Riviére, Le Dogme de la Rédemption, Paris 1905 (Eng- 
lish translation, The Doctrine of the Atonement, 2 vols., London 
1909).— E. Krebs, Der Logos als Heiland im 1. Jahrhundert, Frei- 
burg 1910.— E. Hugon, O. P., Le Mystére de la Rédemption (a spec- 
ulative pendant to Riviére’s Le Dogme de la Rédemption, which is 
mainly historical), Paris 1911—H. N. Oxenham, The Catholic 
Doctrine of the Atonement: An Historical Inquiry into its Devel- 
opment in the Church, London 1865. (This work, which has been 
lately translated into French, must be read with caution. Cfr. La 
Civilta Cattolica, Quad. 1431, Feb. 5, 1910).— J. Kleutgen, S. J., 
Theologie der Vorgeit, Vol. I, 2nd ed., pp. 336 sqq., Miinster 1870 
(against Giinther).— Friedlieb, Leben Jesu Christi des Erlésers 
mit neuen Instorischen und chronologischen Untersuchungen, 


25 Cat. Rom., P. I, c. 6, qu. 8:. set, qua et licuit sua virtute revivis- 
“Divina vis tum in corpore inerat, cere atque a mortuis resurgere.’— 
qua animae iterum coniungit, tum Cfr. Chr. Pesch, Praelect. Dogmat., 
in anima, qua ad corpus reverti pos- Vol. IV, pp. 280 sqq. 


THE RESURRECTION 109 


Paderborn 1887.— Grimm, Leben Jesu nach den vier Evangelien, 
7 vols., 2nd ed., Ratisbon 1890 sqq.— Didon, O. P., Jesus Christ, 
English edition, London 1895.—J. E. Belser, Geschichte des Lei- 
dens und Sterbens, der Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt des Herrn, 
and ed., Freiburg 1913.— W. Humphrey, S. J., The One Mediator, 
London s. a—A. J. Maas, S. J., Christ in Type and Prophecy, 
Vol. II, pp. 13 sqq., New York 1895.— G. W. B. Marsh, Messianic 
Philosophy, pp. 24 sqq., London 1908— Freddi-Sullivan, S. J., 
Jesus Christ the Word Incarnate, pp. 191 sqq., St. Louis 1904.— 
J. Tixeront, Histoire des Dogmes, Vol. II, 3rd ed., pp. 148 sqq., 
285 sqq., 376 sqq., Paris 1909.— B. J. Otten, S. J.. A Manual of 
the History of Dogmas, Vol. I, St. Louis 1918, pp. 196 sqq., 201 
sqq. 

See also the references in Pohle-Preuss, Christology, and ed., 
pp. 7 sq., St. Louis 1916. 

* The asterisk before an author’s name indicates that his treatment 
of the question is especially clear and thorough. As St. Thomas is in- 
variably the best guide, the omission of the asterisk before his name never 


means that we consider his work in any way inferior to that of other 
writers, There are vast stretches of theology which he scarcely touched. 


PART Il 


THE THREE OFFICES OF THE 
REDEEMER 


The Redemption, considered as an objective 
fact, must be subjectively appropriated by each 
individual human being. Hence three functions 
or offices on the part of our Divine Redeemer, (1) 
that of High Priest, (2) that of Prophet or 
Teacher, and (3) that of King. 


= 


IIo 


CHAPTER I 


CHRIST’S PRIESTHOOD 


SECTION 


CHRIST’S DEATH A TRUE SACRIFICE 


The present Chapter is chiefly concerned with 
demonstrating, (1) that the death of Christ was 
a true sacrifice, and (2) that He Himself was a 
true priest. It is these facts which give to the 
Redemption its sacerdotal and hieratic stamp and 
furnish us with the key to the philosophy of the 
atonement. 

I. DEFINITION OF THE TERM “Broopy SAc- 
RIFICE.’—A sacrifice is “the external offering up 
of a visible gift, which is destroyed, or at least 
“submitted to an appropriate transformation, by a 
lawful minister in recognition of the sovereignty 
of God and in order to appease His anger.” 


a) This definition, which will be more fully explained 
in the dogmatic treatise on the Holy Eucharist,,embraces 
four essential elements: 

(a) A visible gift and its physical or moral destruc- 
tion or transformation, such as the slaughtering of an 

III 


112 OFFICES-OF THE REDEEMER 


animal, the burning of cereals, the pouring out of a 
fluid, etc. 

(8) A lawful minister or priest who offers the gift to 
God. 

(y) An exterior act of worship, consisting in the phys- 
ical presentation of the gift. 

(8) A final end or object, which is the acknowledgment 
of God’s supreme dominion and the appeasement of His 
anger. _ 

Applying the Scholastic distinction between materia 
and forma, we find that the materia remota of a sacrifice 
is the visible gift itself, its materia proxima, the act of de- 
struction or transformation, and its forma, the sacrificial 
act (actio sacrifica), which combines and unifies both 
the external offering of the visible gift and the intrinsic 
purpose for which it is offered. This intrinsic purpose 
or object is the main factor, because it informs and de- 
termines the external act, just as the human soul informs 
and determines the body. Without a genuine intention 
on the part of the sacrificing priest there is no sacrifice. 

b) The twofold purpose of every sacrifice is the ac- 
knowledgment of God’s supreme dominion and the ap- 
peasement of His anger. 

The first of these objects is attained by adoration, the 
second ‘by expiation. 

Adoration is the formal element of every sacrifice, 7. e., 
that which essentially constitutes it a sacrifice in the 
strict sense of the term. Expiation does not enter into 
the essence of sacrifice, but is a merely secondary 
factor, because conditioned by the accidental fact of sin. 
Since both thanksgiving and supplication, when addressed 
to the Almighty, invariably and necessarily partake of the 


1.Cfr. St: Thomas,’ S. Theol., 2a 2ae, qu; 85, art .2. 


SACRIFICE Lt? 


nature of absolute worship, sacrifices offered up for these 
two purposes have no relation to sin. The case is differ- 
ent with expiatory sacrifices. While sin has neither abol- 
ished nor debased, but rather reinforced, the main pur- 
pose of adoration, namely thanksgiving and supplication, 
it has added a new object which, though in itself second- 
ary, has become inseparable from the notion of sacrifice 
in consequence of the Fall. : 

These considerations explain the usual division into 
sacrifices of adoration (sacrificia latreutica), sacrifices of 
thanksgiving (sacrificia eucharistica), sacrifices of sup- 
plication or petition (sacrificia wnpetratoria), and sacri- 
fices of expiation or propitiation (sacrificia propitiatoria). 
As these four objects can never be entirely separated, 
the various kinds of sacrifice owe their specific appella- 
tions solely to the special emphasis laid on the principal 
purpose for which each is offered. 

c) A most important element in the concept of sac- 
rifice is the symbolic substitution of some other creature 
for man. “The gift takes the place of the giver. By 
sacrificing an object over which he has control, and 
offering it up entirely to God, man acknowledges God’s 
overlordship over his person and life, and it is the latter 
which is symbolically offered up and destroyed)? 
This symbolism is based on the very nature of sac- 
rifice. The acknowledgment of God as the sovereign 
Lord of the universe has its human correlative in 
man’s humble subjection and surrender of himself to 
his Maker. The most precious gift which man has re- 
ceived from God is life. Since he cannot surrender this 
— God demands no human sacrifices — He offers it up 
symbolically by destroying or transforming and present- 


2 Jos. Dahlmann, S. J., Der Idea- sophie im Zeitalter der Opfermysiik, 
lismus der indischen Religionsphilo- p. 22, Freiburg 1901. 


114 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


ing in his own stead some living or inanimate creature. 
This vicarious act assumes its deepest significance in the 
sacrifice of propitiation, by which, in addition to manifest- 
ing the sentiments already mentioned, man confesses his 
guilt and admits that he has deserved death in punishment 
for his sins. It is in this sense that St. Thomas explains 
the Old Testament holocausts, “ The slaughtering of ani- 
mals,” he says, “ signifies the destruction of sins and that 
men are deserving of death for their sins, as if those ani- 
mals were killed in their stead to denote the expiation 
of their sins.”* The ethical significance of sacrifice is 
based on this same consideration. The highest act of 
divine worship, coupled as it ever should be with sin- 
cere contrition and an ardent desire to be reconciled to 
God, cannot but elevate, cleanse, and sanctify the human 
heart, especially in view of the fact that God’s will to 
save all men and the legitimate institution of the sacri- 
ficial rite confirm human expectation and constitute a rich 
source of consolation. 


d) The Sacrifice of the Cross is not only a true 
sacrifice, but in contradistinction to the sacri- 
ficium incruentum (Hebrew, "732 ) specifically a 
bloody sacrifice. What constitutes the differ- 
ence between the two? It cannot be the per- 
son of the lawful minister, nor yet the final 
object of all sacrifice (except in so far as propi- 
tiation must plainly be the prevailing motive of 


every bloody sacrifice). 


8S. Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 102, art. 
3, ad 5: “ Per occisionem anima- 
lium significatur destructio pecca- 
torum et quod homines erant digni 
occisione pro peccatis suis, ac si illa 


Herice we shall have to 


animalia loco eorum occiderentur ad 
significandam expiationem peccato- 
rum.” Cfr. N. Giehr, The Holy 
Sacrifice of the Mass, pp. 35 sqq., 
3rd ed., St. Louis 1908. 


A BLOODY SACRIFICE 115 


seek for the specific difference in the materia and 


forma. 


The materia remota of a bloody sacrifice, as its very 
name suggests, must be a living creature endowed with 
blood (victima, hostia). Its materia proxima is the 
slaying of the victim, accompanied by an effusion of 
the life-giving fluid (mactatio cum sanguinis effusione). 
In regard to the physical forma there is room for a differ- 
ence of opinion, as we do not know for certain whether 
the sacrificial act (actio sacrifica), strictly so called, is 
the slaying of the victim or its oblation. The latter 
Opinion is the more probable, though not certain. First, 
because the act of slaying, as such, with its con- 
sequent shedding of blood, does not necessarily indicate 
the purpose of the sacrifice, and consequently requires a 
more specific determinant, 1. e., the act of oblation. 
Secondly, because in the Mosaic sacrifice the victim was 
slain by laymen and temple servants, while the oblation 
of the blood was a function reserved to the lawfully 
appointed priesthood. Third, because it is impossible 
to assume that Christ’s bloody sacrifice on the Cross con- 
sisted in the material acts of cruelty committed by His 
barbarous executioners. 

Hence a bloody sacrifice must be defined as “ the visible 
oblation of a living creature, the slaying of which is 
accompanied by the shedding of blood, by a lawful min- 
ister, in acknowledgment of the supreme sovereignty of 
God, and especially to propitiate His anger.’ ® 


2. Tue Docma.—The_ Church has formally 
defined, against the Socinians and the Rationalists, 


4Cfr. P. Scholz, Die hl. Alter- . 5 Cfr. Becanus, De Triplici Sacri- 
tiimer des Volkes Israel, II, 134  ficio, Naturae, Legis, Gratiae, Opusc. 
sqq., Ratisbon 1868, ‘ II, Lugduni 1631. 


116 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


that Christ’s vicarious atonement was a bloody 
sacrifice, made for the purpose of reconciling 
the human race to God (sacrificium propitiato- 
rium. ) 


The Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431) declared against 
Nestorius: “For He offered Himself up for us as an 
odor of sweetness to God the Father. Hence if any one 
say that the Divine Logos Himself was not made our 
High Priest ® and Apostle . . . let him be anathema.” 7? 
The Council of Trent, in defining the Holy Sacrifice 
of the Mass, bases its definition on the dogma that 
Christ’s bloody death on the Cross was a true sacrifice: 
“Though He was about to offer Himself once on the 
altar of the Cross unto God the Father ... that He 
might leave a visible sacrifice . . . whereby that bloody 
sacrifice, once to be accomplished on the Cross, might be 
represented, . . . He offered up to God the Father His 
own body and blood under the species of bread and 
wine ... [In the Mass] that same Christ is contained 
and immolated in an unbloody manner, who once offered 
Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the Cross. 
. .. For.the victim is one and the same, the same now 

offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered 
Himself on the Cross, the manner alone of offering be- 
ing different.” ® f 


6 dpx.epéa. sacrificium, quo cruentum  illud 


7“Obiulit enim semetipsum pro 
nobis in odorem suavitatis Deo et 
Patri. Si quis ergo Pontificem et 
Apostolum nostrum dicit factum 
non ipsum Det Verbum..., ana- 
thema sit.” Synod. Ephes., can. 10. 
(Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 122.) 

8 “Etsi semel seipsum in ara cru- 
cis morte intercedente Deo Patri 
oblaturus erat, ... ut relinqueret 


semel in cruce peragendum. reprae- 
sentaretur, ene « COTPUS et San- 
guinem suum sub speciebus panis 
et vini Deo Patri obtulit.... [In 
Missa] idem ille Christus... ine 
cruente immolatur, qui in ara crucis 
semel seipsum cruente obtulit... 
Una eademque est hostia, idem nune 
offerens sacerdotum ministerio, qui 
seipsum tunc in cruce_obtulit, sola 


A. BLOODY ‘SACRIFICE ly. 


a) The Scriptural proof of our dogma is based 
partly on the Old and partly on the New Testa- 
ment. 3 

a) The argument from the Old Testament 
may be stated, in the terms of a syllogism, thus: 
The sacrifices of the Old Law, which were almost 
exclusively bloody oblations, culminated in the 
idea that the Israelite, conscious of having de- 

served death for his sins, substituted brute ani- 
mals in his own stead and offered them to God as 
a means of propitiation. Now all'the sacrifices of 
the Old Law were merely types of Christ’s death 
on the Cross. Therefore Christ’s death must be 
as truly a vicarious sacrifice of blood and propitia- 
tion as were the sacrifices of the Old Testament. 


Proof of the Major Premise. There is no need of dem- 
onstrating the proposition that the Old Testament sacri- 
fices were true sacrifices, as this is denied by no one. That 
the Jews practiced symbolic substitution is obvious from 
the sacrificial rites which they employed. Aside from cer- 
tain unbloody oblations of altogether minor importance 
they offered three different kinds of sacrifices: burnt offer- 
ings, peace offerings, and offerings for sin. All three 
required the imposition of hands on the head of the 
victim to symbolize that the sins of the people were 
heaped upon it. Thus, when the multitude had trans- 
_ gressed a divine command through ignorance, they 
had to bring a sin-offering to the door of the taber- 


offerendi ratione diversé.’ (Conc. 940; cfr. also can. 3-4, ibid. n. 950, 
Trid., Sess. XXII, cap. 1 and 2 951.) 


Denzinger Bannwart, No. 938 and 


118 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


nacle in the shape of a calf. Lev. IV, 13-20: “ And 
the ancients of the people shall put their hands upon 
the head thereof before the Lord; and the calf being 
immolated in the sight of the Lord, the priest that is 
anointed shall carry off the blood into the tabernacle of 
the testimony. ... And the priest praying for them, 
the Lord will be merciful unto them.” ‘On the Feast 
of Expiation two buck goats were led up to the door 
of the tabernacle, and one of them was slain as a 
sin offering. With regard to the other the Mosaic 
law ordained as follows: ‘Then let him [the high 
priest] offer the living goat: and putting both hands 
upon his head, let him confess all the iniquities of the 
children of Israel, and all their offences and sins: and 
praying that they may light on his head, he shall turn 
him out by a man ready for it, into the desert. And 
when the goat hath carried all their iniquities into an 
uninhabited land, and shall be let go into the desert, 
Aaron shall-return into the tabernacle of the testimony.” ° 
What was thus symbolized in the sacrificial rite is ex- 
plicitly set forth in the prohibition of blood, Lev. XVII, 
11: “... the life of the flesh is in the blood: and 
I have given it to you, that you may make atonement 
with it upon the altar for your souls, and the blood may 
be for an expiation of the soul.” The text we have 
previously quoted from Isaias (Is. LIII, 4 sqq.), derives 
its deeper significance from the sacrificial rite described 
by the same prophet (Is. LII, 15; LIII, 7, 10).1° 

Proof of the Minor Premise. The minor premise of 
our syllogism can be demonstrated from St. Paul’s Epis- 
tle to the Hebrews, particularly Chapters 8 to 10. As 
the Old Law had but “a shadow of the good things to 


9 Lev. XVI, 9; XVI, 20 saq. bauer, Erklarung des Propheten 
10 Supra, p. 46. Cfr. Knaben- Jsaias, Freiburg 1881. 


A BLOODY SACRIFICE IIQ. 


come,” ** so in particular its sacrifices merely prefigured 
the one great sin-offering on the Cross. Being “weak 
and needy elements,” it was impossible that “‘ the blood 
of oxen and goats” should “take away sin.” 1? The 
student will be able to appreciate the full force of this 
argument only after a careful perusal of the whole Epis- 
tle. If the Mosaic sacrifices were real and vicarious, 
this must be true in a far higher sense of the sacrifice 
of the Cross, which they foreshadowed.*® 


8) The argument from the New Testament is 
based on the Epistle to the Hebrews, with its 
explicit assertion that the typical sacrifices of the 
Old Law found their consummation and perfec- . 
tion in the one true sacrifice of the Cross. Ina 
variety of phrases St. Paul reiterates the funda- 
mental truth that, as priest and victim in one per- 
son, Jesus Christ by a single bloody offering 
atoned for the sins of men and once for all con- 
summated their eternal salvation. 


To quote only a few salient passages: “For if the 
blood of goats and of oxen, and the ashes of an heifer 
being sprinkled, sanctify such as are defiled, to the 
cleansing of the flesh: how much more shall the blood 
of Christ, who by the Holy Ghost offered himself un- 
spotted unto God, cleanse our conscience from dead 
works to serve the living God?” “So also Christ 
was offered once to exhaust the sins of many.” ?* “In 


11 Heb, X, 1. 14équrdy mpoonveycey duwuev 
12 Heb, X, 4. Cfr. Gal. IV, 9. +6 Oc. 
13 Cfr, Franzelin, De Verbo In- 15 Heb. IX, 13-14. 

carnato, thes, 49, Rome 1881; Hugo 16 dak mpoceveyx els els TO Trod- 


Weiss, Die messianischen Vorbilder dv dveveyxeiv duaprias. Heb. 
im Alten,.Testament, Freiburg 1905. IX, 28. 


120 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


the which will we are sanctified by the oblation of the 
body of Jesus Christ alone.” ?* “ But this man [Christ] 
offering one sacrifice for sins,!8 for ever sitteth on the 
right hand of God.” +® “ For by one oblation 2° he hath 
perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” 24 


The sacrificial character of the death of our 
Divine Lord is expressly inculcated in many other 
passages of the New Testament. 


Cfr. Matth, XX, 28: “Filius hominis non venit 
ministrari, sed ministrare et dare animam suam redemp- 
tionem pro multis ??— The Son of man is not come to be 
ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a 
redemption for many.” Christ here emphasizes three 
momenta, viz.: sacrifice, atonement, and the vicarious 
character of that atonement. “To give one’s life” 2% is a 
distinctly hieratic and sacrificial term; “for many” *4 
denotes vicarious satisfaction, and “redemption” in- 
dicates expiation. It follows from this important text 
that the expression “for many” or “ for all,” 2 which 
occurs so frequently in the New Testament, when used 
in connection with sacrifice means, not only “ for the 
benefit of many,” but also “instead of many.” Cfr. 
Eph. V, 2: “ Tradidit semetipsum pro nobis oblationem 
et hostiam Deo* in odorem suavitatis— Christ .. . 
hath delivered himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice 
to God for an odor of sweetness.” 28 1 Tim. II, 6: 


Nie Fieh, Ok? "yo. 24 dyrl moAdGy, not merely daép 

18 widy Urép auapTioy mpogevéy- moAdP. 

kas Ovclap. 25 AUrpoy (strictly, ransom). 
19 Heb. X, 12. 26 trép moddN@y, pro multis. 
20 weg yap mpoopopg. 27 mapédwkev éavrov wrép uav 
21 Heb. X, 14. mpoopopav Kat Ovolav. 
22 Kal Sovvar thy Yuxnhv abrov 28 mpoogopa here means sacrifice 

NUTpov dvTl woANGy. — in general, @vola, bloody sacrifice. 


23 dovvar Thy Wuxny. 


A BLOODY SACRIFICE 121 


“Qui dedit redemptionem semetipsum pro omnibus,?? 


testimonium temporibus suis— Who gave himself a re- 
demption for all, a testimony in due times.” Referring 
to the Old Testament sacrifice of the Paschal lamb, St. 
Paul says in his first Epistle to the Corinthians (V, 7) : 
“Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus — For Christ 
our pasch is sacrificed.” The expiatory character of 
our Lord’s death is expressly asserted in Rom. III, 25: 
“Quem proposuit Deus propitiationem® per fidem in 
sanguine ipsius—- Whom God hath proposed to be a 
propitiation, through faith in his blood,” and likewise in 
the first Epistle of St. John (II, 2): “Ipse est propi- 
tiatio** pro peccatis nostris, non pro nostris autem 
tanium, sed etiam pro totius mundi — He is the propitia- 
tion for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for 
those of the whole world.” #” 


b) Christian Tradition has from the first faith- 
fully adhered to the obvious teaching of Holy 
Scripture in this matter. 


The so-called Epistle of Barnabas, which was prob- 
ably composed at the time of the Emperor Nerva (A. D. 
96-98) ,°* contains the following passage: “For our 
sins he was going to offer the vessel of the spirit [7. -e., 
His sacred humanity] as a sacrifice,** in order that the 
type established in Isaac, who was sacrificed upon the 
altar, might be fulfilled.” ** Tertullian expresses himself 
in a similar strain: “ Christ, who was led like a sheep to 


29 6 dobs Eaurdy avrirutpoy trép 
mavrwy. "Avritvtpoy here means 
a transom given vicariously, by a 
representative. 

30 ikaorhpioy = a sacrifice of pro- 
pitiation, 

31 fhaguds. 


82,Cir 2 Cori (Vivet. 
83 Cfr. Bardenhewer-Shahan, Pa- 
trology, Pp. 24. 


34 were.» « mpocdepery Ovolav. 
3O EPI Darts gan tieaenn Cd: 
Funk, I, 23.) 


122 OFRICES: OF THE REDEEMER 


the slaughtering pen, had to be made a sacrifice for all 
nations.” *° 


3. THEOLOGICAL PRoBLEMS.—Christ vicari- 
ously made atonement for us by immolating Him- 
self; consequently, He is priest, acceptant, and 
victim allin one. This gives rise to a number of 
subtle theological problems, which in the main 
may be reduced to three: (a) Was it in His 
Godhead or manhood that Christ combined the 
double function of victim and priest? (b) In 
what sense did He simultaneously offer and 
accept the sacrifice of the Cross? (c) Wherein 
precisely did the actio sacrifica of His bloody 
sacrifice consist? 

a) The first question must be decided on 
Christological principles as follows. The victim 
(victuma, hostia) of the sacrifice of the Cross was 
the Godman, or, more specifically, the Divine 
Logos in person, though not, of course, through 
the functions of His Divine, but those of His 
human nature. 


To assert that the human nature of our Lord alone 
was sacrificed on the Cross would be equivalent to Nes- 
torianism. To hold that it was the Godhead as such 
that was crucified and sacrificed, would savor of Theo- 
paschitic Monophysitism. Both heretical extremes are 
avoided by saying that the Divine Logos was indeed 

86 Adv. Iud., c. 13. For other Genugtuung Christi, § 7-10, Pader- 


Patristic texts bearing on this sub- born 1891. 
ject see Dorholt, Die Lehre von der 


THEOLOGICAL PROBLEMS 123 3 


sacrificed (principium quod), but only according to His 
passible manhood (principium quo). This proposition 
is an immediate deduction from the dogma of the 
Hypostatic Union. 

A similar answer may be given to the cognate question ; 
In what way did Christ officiate as a priest? In other 
words, Did He offer the sacrifice of the Cross (i. e., Him- 
self) to God in His human or in His Divine Nature? 
The correct answer depends on a true conception of 
the nature of the Hypostatic Union. Nestorius believed 
that Jesus Christ and the Logos-Son were two separate 
and distinct persons, and hence he was entirely consistent 
in teaching that the man Jesus alone was a high priest, to 
the exclusion of the Divine Logos.’? The same con- 
clusion was forced upon the Socinians, who denied the 
Trinity and consequently also the Divinity of Jesus 
Christ. Though the Monophysites held a diametrically 
Opposite opinion, they too were perfectly consistent in 
regarding the Divine Nature of Christ as the instrument 
of mediation, redemption, and the priesthood; for they 
imagined Christ’s humanity to have been absorbed and 
destroyed by His Divinity. We cannot, however, regard 
without surprise the illogical attitude of certain older 
Protestant divines, who, despite their orthodox teaching 
on the Hypostatic Union, either showed Nestorian lean- 
ings, as e. g. Francis Stancarus (d. 1574), or, like cer- 
tain Calvinists and Zwinglians in Switzerland, adopted 
the Monophysitic view that Christ was our Mediator and 
High Priest gua Logos and not qua man.*8 The truth 
lies between these extremes. The Godman was a true 
priest, not, however, in His divine, but solely in His 
human nature.®*°. 


37 Cfr. Concilium Ephes., can.10. V. Supra, Pp. 116. 
88 For details consult Bellarmine, De Christo, V, 2-3. 
89 Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, qu. 22, art. 2. 


124 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


b) The second question is: How are we to 
conceive the relation of Christ in His capacity as 
sacrificing priest, to Christ as the Divine Logos, 
to whom the sacrifice of the Cross was offered? 
To solve this problem correctly we shall have to 
bear in mind the truths set forth in the first part 


of this treatise with regard to the mediatorship 
of our Lord.*° 


It will not do to represent the first Person of the 
Blessed Trinity as the sole acceptor of the sacrifice of 
the Cross, and Christ merely as the sacrificing priest, 
though this opinion has found some defenders among 
Catholic divines. It was the Trinity, or God qua God, 
who had been offended by sin; consequently the sacrifice 
of the Cross had to be offered up as a propitiation to 
the entire Trinity. Hence Christ not only offered up 
the sacrifice of the Cross, but He also accepted it, though 
of course only in His capacity as God, conjointly with the 
Father and the Holy Ghost. The Patristic phrase, 
adopted by the Council of Trent, that Christ “offered 
Himself unto God the Father,” must therefore be ex- 
plained as an appropriation. 

From what we have said it appears that Christ exer- 
cised in a most wonderful manner three distinct func- 
tions, viz.: that of sacrificial victim, that of the sacrificing 
priest, and that of the accepting God. As God He ac- 
cepts His own sacrifice; as Godman (or Logos) He is. 
both victim (victima) and sacrificing priest (sacerdos), 
though only according to His human nature. St. Augustine 

40 Supra, pp. § saqq. Preuss, The Divine Trinity, pp. 244 


41 V. supra, pp. 67 sq. On the — sqq. 
Divine Appropriations see Pohle- 


THEOLOGICAL PROBLEMS 125) 
beautifully explains this in his famous work De Civitate 
Det. “ And hence that true Mediator, in so far as, by as- 
suming the form of a servant, He became the Mediator 
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, though in 
the form of God He received [accepted] sacrifice to- 
gether with the Father, with whom He is one God, yet 
in the form of a servant He chose rather to be than 
to receive a sacrifice, that not even by this instance any 
one might have occasion to suppose that sacrifice should 
be rendered to any creature. Thus He is both the 
Priest who offers and the Sacrifice offered.” # 


c) As regards the sacrificial act itself, it did 
not formally consist in the killing of the victim. 


To hold that it did, would involve the blasphemous 
conclusion that the sacrificing priests on Calvary were 
the brutal soldiers who tortured our Lord and. nailed 
Him to the Cross. No, the real priest was Jesus Christ 
Himself ; His executioners were merely unconscious in- 
struments in the hands of Providence. 

If Christ was the sacrificing priest, it follows that 
He alone performed the sacrificial act. 

This sacrificial act did not consist in self-immolation. 
That would have been sheer suicide. It consisted in the 
voluntary oblation of His Blood, which He allowed to 
be shed (extrinsic factor) and which He offered to Al- 
mighty God with a true sacrificial intent (intrinsic factor). 
It was this voluntary oblation of His life and blood 


42De Civ. Dei, X, 20. “Verus forma servi sacrificium maluit esse 


tlle. mediator, inquantum formam 
servi accipiens mediator effectus est 
Det et hominum, homo Christus 
Tesus, quum in forma Dei sacrificium 
cum Patre sumat [acceptet], cum 
quo e+ unus Deus est, tamen in 


quam sumere, ne vel hac occasione 
quisquam existimaret cuilibet sacri- 
ficandum esse creaturae. Per hoc et 
Sacerdos est, ipse offerens, ipse et 
oblatio.” (Cir. De Trinit., IV, 14, 
IQ). 


126 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


(oblatio vitae et sanguinis) which constituted the formal 
element, and consequently the essence of the sacrifice of 
the Cross.*8 

This also explains why martyrdom is not a true sac- 
rifice. It has not been instituted as such by God, and, 
furthermore, no martyr can dispose of his life and blood 
with the sovereign liberty enjoyed by our Lord, who had 
absolute control over all the circumstances surrounding 
His death and gave up His soul when and how He 
pleased.** 

43 Cfr. John X, 18. gelium des hl. Johannes, pp. 511 


44(Cfr. Franzelin, De Verbo In- sqq., Freiburg 1905. 
carnato, thes. 50; Belser, Das Evan- 


SECTION 2 
CHRIST A TRUE PRIEST 


“Priest” and “Sacrifice” being correlative terms, 
the priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ is a logical and 
necessary corollary of His sacrifice on the Cross. Sa- 
cred Scripture expressly confirms this deduction. 

The concept of “ priesthood” embraces two essential 
elements, viz.: (1) unction or ordination, and (2) the 
offering of sacrifice. To these may be added, as an 
integral part, sacerdotal prayer. In the case of Christ, 
moreover, the-Bible lays special stress (3) on the eter- 
nity of His priesthood. We shall develop these consid- 
erations in the form of three separate theses. 


Thesis I: Christ’s unction or ordination to the office 
of high priest took place at the moment of His In- 
carnation. 

This thesis voices the common teaching of 
Catholic divines. 

Proof. If, as we shall show in our next thesis, 
Christ was truly “a priest according to the order 
of Melchisedech,’1 His priesthood must have 
begun simultaneously with His Incarnation, 1. é., 
at the moment in which the Divine Logos as- 
sumed human flesh in the womb of the Virgin. 
The Divine Logos could not have been a priest be- 


1 Heb. V, 6; VI, 20. 
127 


128 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


fore His Incarnation, because then He was not 
yet the Godman. Nor was He anointed or conse- 
crated by any special act subsequent to His Incar- 
nation. Hence His ordination must have coin- 
cided with the inception of the Hypostatic Union. 


This view is confirmed by St. Paul in his Epistle to 
the Hebrews. Heb. X, 5: “Jdeo ingrediens mundum? 
dicit: Hostiam et oblationem noluisti, corpus autem 
aptasti mihi— Wherefore when he cometh into the 
world, he saith: Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldest 
not: but a body thou hast fitted to me.”* Here the 
“fitting of a body” for the sacrifice of the Cross, 
and consequently the beginning of Christ’s priesthood, is 
represented as coincident with His “coming into the 
world,” 7. e., His conception. 

In the fifth chapter of the same Epistle the Apostle 
emphasizes the fact that ‘every high priest taken from 
among men, is ordained for men in the things that apper- 
tain to God,” and then declares that Christ did not or- 
dain Himself, but was “called by God.” Heb. V, 4 sq.: 
“Nec qusquam sumit sibi honorem, sed qui vocatur a 
Deo * tamquam Aaron; sic et Christus non semetipsum 
clarificavit, ut pontifex fieret,® sed qui locutus est ad eum 
[= Pater]: Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genu te— 
Neither doth any man take the honor to himself, but 
he that is called by God, as Aaron was. So Christ also 
did not glorify himself, that he might be made a high 
priest; but he that said unto him: Thou art my Son, 
this: day’ have. 1. begotten thee.’’®. The-© call” to the 
priesthood which Christ received from His Father was 

2 elcepyduevos els Tov Kécpov- 5 yevnOnvar apxtepea- 


8Cfr?) Ps. XX XTX, >. 6 Heb. V, 4 sa. 
4 xadotmevos ard Tov Qeov- 


YCHRIST (Ay TRUEBI PRIEST 129 


the command to redeem the human race. This command 
went into effect at the moment of His conception. Con- 
sequently, Christ’s priesthood began simultaneously with 
the unio hypostatica. 

A third argument for our thesis is based on the Sa- 
viour’s proper name, Christus, which means the Anointed 
One xar’ e£oyqv.7 Whereas the Levites of the Old Testa- 
ment were anointed to the ministry by an accidental 
unction with visible oil,S the Godman Jesus Christ, 
by virtue of the Hypostatic Union, is substantially 
anointed with the invisible oil of Divinity. This sub- 
stantial unction, on account of the object and pur- 
pose of the Redemption, stands in intimate relation- 
ship to the priestly function which He exercised in offer- 
ing the sacrifice of the Cross, and therefore the Hypo- 
static Union as such must be regarded as Christ’s 
substantial ordination to the priesthood. 

Some of the Fathers appear to teach that our Lord’s 
ordination took. place before His Incarnation. It is to 
be noted, however, that their manner of expression is 
distinctly proleptic. What they mean is, that it was by 
His Incarnation that the not yet incarnate Logos was 
constituted a priest. Certain other Fathers seem to 
regard Christ’s baptism in the Jordan as the beginning of 
His priesthood. Rightly understood, however, these 
_ Fathers do not assert that Christ became a high priest 
when He received baptism, but merely that he exercised 
His priesthood for the first time on that occasion. There 
is a clear-cut distinction between an office and the exer- 
cise of its functions; the former differs from the latter 
as potency differs from act.® 

7 Cir. Pohle-Preuss, Christology, 9 Cfr. Petavius, De Incarn., XII, 
pp. 228 sq. 3 and 11. 


8 Cfr. Exod. XXIX, 1 saq:; Lev. 
VIII, 1 sqq. 


130 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


Thesis II: During His terrestrial life Christ was a 
true high priest who exercised His sacerdotal func- 
tions by offering sacrifice and prayer. 


This proposition embodies an article of faith. 

Proof. The Council of Trent defines: “Quo- 
niam sub priort Testamento teste Apostolo Paulo 
propter levitict sacerdotu imbecillitatem consum- 
matio non erat, oportuit Deo Patre misericor- 
diarum ita ordinante sacerdotem alium secundum 
ordinem Melchisedech surgere D. N. Iesum Chri- 
stum, qui posset omnes, quotquot sanctificandi es- 
sent, consummare et ad perfectum adducere.’ 
Anglice: “Forasmuch as, under the former Testa- 
ment, according to the testimony of the Apostle 
Paul, there was no perfection, because of the 
weakness of the Levitical priesthood; there was 
need, God the Father of mercies so ordaining, 
that another priest should rise, according to the 
order of Melchisedech, our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who might consummate, and lead to what is per- 
fect, as many as were to be sanctified.” 1° 

The heretical antithesis of this dogma is the 
Socinian teaching that the priesthood of our Lord 
was in no sense an earthly but exclusively a 
heavenly priesthood."! 

a) That the priesthood of our Divine Lord 


10 Conc. Trid., Sess. XXII, cap. 1. 11 Cfr. F. Socinus, De Christo 
(Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 938.) Servatore, P. II, c. 15. 


CHRIST. A TRUE ER LEST. 130 


was really and truly an earthly priesthood can — 
easily be proved from Sacred Scripture. 

«) To begin with the Old Testament, we need 
but point to Psalm CIX, the Messianic character 
of which is guaranteed by Christ Himself.1? The 
fourth verse reads as follows: “Thou art a 
priest for ever according to the order of Melchi- 
sedech.”’ Melchisedech was an earthly priest; 
consequently the priesthood of Christ must be an 
earthly priesthood.” 

£) The prophet Isaias, pointing to the “Man 
of sorrows,” 1. e., the future Messias, presages 
that “he shall sprinkle many nations.” ** This 
sprinkling, from the context, can only mean 
a sacrificial sprinkling with blood (aspersio san- 
guims).*° 

vy) No other sacred writer has portrayed the 
earthly priesthood of our Lord so grandly as St. 
Paul, whose Epistle to the Hebrews constitutes 
one prolonged refutation of Socinianism.*® The 
gist of this Epistle may be summarized as 
follows: The priesthood of Melchisedech was 
far superior to the Levitical priesthood, but 
the priesthood of Christ is infinitely superior even 


12 Matth. XXIII, 43 sqq. Uo Cit ee ise Lily. sy sqq.s. oer. 


-18 On the heresy of the Melchise- 
dechians (who held that Melchise- 
dech was not a man but an incarna- 
tion of the Logos) see St. Augus- 
tine, De Haeres., n. 34; cfr. Blunt, 
Dictionary of Sects, pp. 304 s4q., 
new impression, London 1903. | 

141s, LII, 15. 


XVI, 18 sq.; Heb. IX, 14 sqq. 

16 A detailed analysis of St. 
Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews will 
be found in Franzelin, De Verbo 
Incarnato, thes. 48, n. ii; cfr. also 
Chr. Pesch, Prael. Dogmat., Vol. 
IV, 3rd ed., pp. 291 sq, 


132 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


to the priesthood of Melchisedech. Therefore, 
Christ is the holiest, the greatest, the most perfect, 
in fact the sole High Priest, and He exercised His 
priesthood in the perfect sacrifice of the Cross.‘” 

b) But the sacrifice of the Cross was not the 
only sacerdotal function performed by our Divine 
Redeemer. He also officiated as High Priest 
when, at the Last Supper, He instituted the Holy 
Sacrifice of the Mass, and when He pronounced 
the sublime prayer for His disciples recorded 
in the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of St. 
John,*® 


A priest does not always pray in his official capacity 
as priest; some of his prayers are strictly private and 
personal. It is only when he pronounces portions of the 
sacrificial rite, such as the Mass, or liturgical prayers inti- 
mately connected therewith, as those of the Breviary, that 
his prayer assumes a sacerdotal or ‘hieratic character. 
Christ’s prayer for His disciples was a strictly sacerdotal 
or hieratic act, because of its intimate relation to the sacri- 
fice of the Cross. The same is true of the prayers which 
He uttered at the crucifixion. It is rather difficult to draw 
a clear-cut line of demarcation between strictly hieratic 
and purely private prayers in the case of our Divine Lord, 
because His whole interior life was inseparably inter- 
woven with His mission as the Saviour of mankind, and 
therefore also with His priesthood. However, we may - 
apply the term “private” in a wider sense to those 

17 The Patristic argument for our hood may be best studied in St. 
thesis is developed by Pesch, op. cit., Thomas, Summa Theologica, 3a, qu. 


pp. 202 sq. The teaching of the 22 art. 1. 
Scholastics on Christ’s earthly priest- 18 John XVII, 1-26. 


CHRIST A TRUE PRIEST 133 


prayers which He offered up, not for His Apostles, or 
the human race in general, but for Himself, in order to 
obtain personal favors from His Heavenly Father, as, for 
instance, when He asked on Mount Olivet that the chalice 
be removed from His lips,1® or when He petitioned for 
His own glorification. 

There is an essential difference between prayer and 
sacrifice, which should be emphasized here. Christ was 
able to pray for Himself, but He was not able to offer 
sacrifice for Himself. This has been clearly defined by 
the Council of Ephesus (A. D. 431): “If any one... 
assert that He [Christ] offered Himself as a sacrifice 
for Himself, and not rather for us alone, (for He who 
knew absolutely no sin needed no sacrifice), let him be 
anathema.” °° 


Thesis III: Christ’s priesthood continues everlast- 
ingly in Heaven. 


This proposition also embodies an article of 
faith. 

Proof. In Christology 7* we concluded from 
the eternity of Christ’s priesthood to the insep- 
arability of the Hypostatic Union. Here we 
have to prove the antecedent. The eternity of 
Christ’s priesthood is an article of faith, because 
clearly contained in Sacred Scripture. But the 
manner in which He exercises His sacerdotal 


19 Cfr. Heb. V, 7. Bannwart, n, 122).—On Christ’s 
20“ Si quis... dicit, quod pro praying cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol., 
se obtulisset semetipsum oblationem, 3a, qu. 21 and L. Janssens, De 
et non potius pro nobis solis (now  Deo-Homine, Vol. I, pp. 720 saq., 
enim eguit oblatione, qui peccatum Freiburg 1901. 
omnino nescivit), anathema sit.” _21 Pohle-Preuss, Christology, pp. 
Conc. Eph., can. 10 (Denzinger- 74 sqq. 


134 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


office in Heaven remains to be determined by the- 
ological reasoning. 

a) The eternity of our Lord’s priesthood is 
taught both directly and indirectly in St. Paul’s 
Epistle to the Hebrews. 


a) The Apostle expressly applies to Christ the Mes- 
sianic verse: “ Thou art a priest for ever *? according to 
the order of Melchisedech.” 2? That “ for ever” in this 
passage means eternity, not a parte ante but a parte post, 
and in the strict sense of the term, appears from St. 
Paul’s way of arguing in Heb. VII, 1 sqq., where he 
opposes our Lord’s “ everlasting priesthood” to the tem- 
poral priesthood of the Levites. Moreover, he distinctly 
says in Heb. VII, 23 sq.: “ Alii quidem plures facti sunt 
sacerdotes, idcirco quod morte prohiberentur permanere; 
hic autem eo quod maneat in aeternum,2* sempiternum 
habet sacerdotium **°— And the others indeed were made 
many priests, because by reason of death they were not 
suffered to continue: but this, for that he continueth for 
ever, hath an everlasting priesthood.” 


8B) Regarding the manner in which Christ ex- 
ercises His eternal priesthood in Heaven, Revela- 
tion teaches us nothing beyond the fact that He 
is “always living to make intercession for us,” 7° 
which is a truly sacerdotal function, because, as 
St. Paul assures us, it bears an intimate relation 
to the sacrifice of the Cross. Hence we may 


22 els rov alava. 25 dmapadBarov exe ryv lepw- 
28 Ps. CIX, 4. ouvny- 
24614 ro pévery avrov els rov 26 Heb. VII, 25; Rom. VIII, 34. 


aiova. 


\ 


CHRIST A TRUE PRIEST 135 


conclude that our Lord’s intercession for us in 
Heaven consists in everlastingly asserting the 
sacrifice of the Cross. os 


Cfr. Heb. VII, 24 sqq.:. “ Sempiternum habet sacer- 
dotium; unde et salvare in perpetuum potest accedentes 
per semetipsum ad Deum, semper vivens ad interpel- 
landum pro nobis: talis enim * decebat ut nobis esset 
pontifex,® ... qui non habet necessitatem quotidie 
|. . hostias offerre; hoc enim fecit semel seipsum offer- 
endo —[He] hath an everlasting priesthood, whereby he 
is able also to save for ever them that come to God 
by him; always living to make intercession for us. For 
it was befitting that we should have such a high priest 

who needeth not daily ... to offer sacrifices... 
for this he did once, in offering himself.” 

St. John, too, describes Christ's heavenly intercession 
as intimately connected with and based upon the sacri- 
Ace of dhe Cross. Cir. 1 John) ly 1. sq.ri ised en st 
quis peccaverit, advocatum*® habemus apud Patrem 
lesum Christum iustum;-et ipse est propitiatio®® pro 
peccatis nostris — But if any man sin, we have an advo- 
cate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just: and he is 
the propitiation for our sins.” The same Apostle in the 
Apocalypse represents Christ figuratively as a slain lamb, 
i. e., a transfigured sacrificial victim. Apocw GOs wi aut 
vidi... Agnum stantem tamquam occisum a1 _-~ And I 
saw .. . a Lamb standing as it were slain.” In this light 
St. Ambrose’s conception of the relation existing between 
Christ’s heavenly intercession and the marks of the five 
wounds in His glorified body, as indelible witnesses 

27 yap. . 30 ikagpds =a sacrifice of pro- 


28 dpxvepevs- i pitiation. 
29 TapaKANTOV- 81 ws éopayuevors 


136 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


of His bloody sacrifice, must appeal to us as profoundly 
significant: “He refused to relinquish the wounds 
which He had received for us, but preferred to take 
them with Him to Heaven, in order to exhibit [them] to 
His Heavenly Father [as] the purchase price of our 
liberty.7)%2 


b) The doctrine of Christ’s eternal priesthood 
in Heaven has given rise to three separate theo- 
logical problems: (¢) What is the precise na- 
ture of His everlasting intercession for us? (8) 
Does He continue to offer a true sacrifice in 
Heaven? (vy) How can His priesthood endure 
after the Last Judgment, when His intercession 
must of necessity cease? 

a) Theologians are not agreed as to whether 
Christ’s heavenly intercession for the human 
tace is to be conceived as merely implicit (inter- 
pretatwa), or as explicit (formalis). 


The former view is held by Vasquez and Thomassin,, 
the latter and more probable one by Petavius. As 
Christ actually prayed for us while on earth, there is no 
reason, to assume that His continued intercession in 
Heaven is silent or merely implicit, — especially in view of 
the promise which He gave His Apostles that He would 
ask the Father to send them another Paraclete. Cfr. 
John XIV, 16: “And I will ask the Father, and he 
shall give you another Paraclete.” Why weaken the 
term “ask” or “ petition” (rogare, épwrav) to prop the 

82.St. Ambrose, Im Luc., X, n. ut Deo Patri nostrae pretia liberta- 


170: “‘Vulnera accepta pro nobis tis ostenderet.’? 
coelo inferre maluit, abolere noluit, 


CHRIST A TRUE PRIEST 137 


doubtful hypothesis that His intercession is merely vir- — 
tual ? | 

Certain of the Fathers seem to contradict the view de- 
fended by Petavius. But the construction put upon their 
utterances by Vasquez and Thomassin is untenable. In 
reality these Fathers merely wish to emphasize the fact 
that the theandric prayer of Jesus has none of the de- 
fects necessarily inherent in purely human prayer, such 
as indigence, a feeling of helplessness and guilt, an ap- 
peal to mercy, etc. The theandric intercession of our 
heavenly Advocate is based upon the infinite satisfaction 
which He has given for us, and hence is in no wise 
an humble supplication for grace, but a confident asser- 
tion of His merits on behalf of those whom He has re- 
deemed. This is one of the reasons why the Church 
does not pray or instruct her children to pray: “ Lord 
Jesus, intercede for us!” but: “Christ, hear us!” 
“Christ, have mercy on us!” 34 


8) Our second question, it may be well to 
premise, has nothing whatever to do with the So- 
cinian error that Jesus offered no true sacri- 
fice on earth but became the High Priest of hu- 
manity only after His Ascension into Heaven. 
Accepting the sacrificial character of His death, 
theologians merely ask: Does He continue to 
offer a true sacrifice for us in Heaven? 


rh aihoter 84 answered this question in the affirmative, 
and his view has been adopted by L. Zill*® and P. 


83 Cfr. Franzelin, De Verbo In- 84 Das Opfer des Alten und Neuen 
carnato, thes. 51, n. iii; De Lugo, De Bundes, pp. 201 sqq., Ratisbon 1870. 
Myst. Incarnationis, disp. 27, sect. 35 Der Brief an die Hebréer, pp. 


4, Qn. 61 sqq. 430 sqq., Mainz 1879. 


/ 


138 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


Schoulza.** The purpose of these writers in taking the 
position they do is twofold: (1) to gain a basis for a 
reasonable explanation of the metaphysical essence of 
the Sacrifice of the Mass, and (2) to give a tangible con- 
tent to the Scriptural teaching of Christ’s eternal priest- 
hood. 

Thalhofer declares the formal element of sacrifice to 
consist, not in the exterior oblation of the victim, which is 
in some manner or other transformed, but solely in the 
interior disposition of the sacrificing priest. But this 
theory is contrary to the common teaching of Catholic 
divines and does not square with certain generally ad- 
mitted facts. Granted that the disposition of the sac- 
rificing priest is the intrinsic and invisible forma, and 
consequently the most important part of a sacrifice; yet 
it can never supply the extrinsic physical form. Christ’s 
constant pointing to His wounds, of which Thalhofer 
makes so much, is merely a significant gesture which 
effects no intrinsic transformation of the kind strictly 
demanded by the notion of sacrifice. Zill attempted to 
construct a Scriptural basis for Thalhofer’s theory, but 
his deductions had already been substantially refuted by 
Tournely in his argument against Faustus Socinus.27 St. 
Paul, far from asserting that Christ offers sacrifice in 
Heaven, or that He continues His earthly sacrifice there, 
expressly declares that our Lord merely asserts ad mo- 
dum interpellationis and forever the sacrifice He has 
once for all consummated on the Cross. This interpella- 
tion can in no wise be construed as a sacrifice.?® 

36 Liturgia Catholica Fidei Magis- 88 Cfr. F. Stentrup, Soteriologia, 
tra, Insulis 1901. thes. 82; Pesch, Prael. Dogmat., 

87 Tournely, De Incarn., qu. 5, | Vol. IV, 3rd ed., pp. 300 sqq. 


art. 2; cfr. Franzelin, De Verbo In- 
carnato, DP. 539. 


CHRIST) A~TRUE PRINS? 139 


vy) There remains the third question: How 
can Christ’s priesthood endure forever, since 
after the Last Judgment not only the hypothetical 
sacrifice construed by Thalhofer, but likewise His 
intercession for us must needs cease? 


There can be no doubt whatever that our Lord’s 
priestly intercession in Heaven will end with the last 
Mass celebrated on earth. Nevertheless, His priesthood 
will continue, in a threefold respect. (1) He will re- 
main “a priest for ever” in dignity (secundum digni- 
tatem), because His sacerdotal character stands or falls 
with the Hypostatic Union, and consequently is indelible 
and incapable of being lost.8® (2) Christ’s priesthood 
endures eternally in respect of its effectiveness (secun- 
dum effectum), in so far as the fruits of the sacrifice 
of the Cross are unceasingly renewed in the grace and 
glory enjoyed by the Elect in Heaven.*® (3) Christ 
remains the eternal High Priest of humanity secundum 
affectum; for, while He does not offer up a perpetual 
sacrifice in the strict and proper sense of the term, He 
causes a sweet burnt-offering of unending adoration and 
thanksgiving to rise before the throne of the Most Holy 
Trinity,— which is after all the ultimate purpose and 
end of all creation. 


39 Cfr. Thesis I, supra, pp. 127  sacrificit consequuntur. Finis autem 


sqq. 

40 Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, 
qu. 22, art. 5: ‘‘ In officio sacerdotis 
duo possunt considerari: primo qui- 
dem ipsa oblatio sacrificti, secundo 
ipsa sacrificit consummatio, quae 
quidem consistit in hoc, quod ilk 
pro quibus sacrificium offertur, finem 


10 


sacrificit quod Christus obtulit, non 
fuerunt - bona  temporalia, sed 
aeterna, quae per eius mortem adi- 
piscimur.” L.c.,ad 2: “ Licet pas- 
sio et mors Christi de caetero non 
sint iteranda, tamen virtus illius 
hostiae semel oblatae permanet in 
aeternum.” 


CHAPTER I 


CHRIST’S PROPHETICAL OFFICE 


I. DEFINITION OF THE TERM “PROPHET.”— 
The word “Prophet” is etymologically derived 
from the Greek verb zpé¢n™, to say beforehand, 
to foretell (Hebr. 98° —vates, seer). In a 
wider sense it signifies a teacher (magister, 
diddoxados; Flebr. 823 = speaker, orator).! 


The Bible employs the term Prophet in both mean- 
ings, most frequently however in the latter. Old Testa- 
ment prophetism was not limited to extraordinary pre- 
dictions of future events, but comprised primarily the 
ordinary teaching office, which was clothed with di- 
vine authority and exercised by instruction, admonition, 
warnings, and threats. The so-called prophetic schools 
of the Jews were colleges founded for the training of 
professional teachers of religion, not of prophets in the 
strict sense of the term.? 


To say that Christ exercised the office or func- 
tion of a prophet, is equivalent to saying that 
He possessed in the highest degree the gift of 
prophecy (donum prophetiae) and the vocation 


1Cfr. Maas, Christ in Type and in Libros V. T., Vol. II, pp. 267 
Prophecy, Vol. I, pp. 82 sqq. sqq., Paris 1887; Maas, op. cit., 
2Cfr. R. Cornely, Introd. Spec. Vol. I, 108 sqq. 


140 


CHRIST A TRUE PROPHET 14 


of a teacher (magisterium). Soteriology deals 
with Him only as a teacher. | 

2. THE PROPHETIC TEACHING OFFICE OF 
Curist.—The Old Testament prophets hailed the 
future Messias as a teacher of truth, and when 
Jesus Christ appeared in Palestine, He actually 
exercised the functions of a teacher in the most 
exalted sense of the term. 


a) Moses, who both as the founder of a religion and 
a teacher par excellence, is a prominent type of the 
Messias, uttered the famous prophecy registered in Deut. 
XVIII, 15: “The Lord thy God will raise up a prophet ° 
of thy nation and of thy brethren like unto me: him thou 
shalt hear.” * This passage is expressly applied to Christ 
in the New. Testament.® 

Isaias foretells that the coming Messias will deliver 
humanity.irom: sin and error, “Is, LXI, 1 sq.s.** The 
spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath 
anointed me: he hath sent me to preach to the meek, to 
heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the 
captives, and deliverance to them that are shut up; to 
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day 
of vengeance of our God: to comfort all that mourn.” 

Christ Himself publicly read this passage in the syna- 
gogue at Nazareth, and when he had folded the book, 


Christ, whom heaven indeed must 


8 N39 ° 


4Cfr. Deut. XVIII, 18. 

-6 Acts III, 22 sqq. ‘Be penitent, 
therefore, and be converted, that 
your sins may be blotted out; that 
when the times of refreshment shall 
come from the presence of the Lord, 
and he shall send him who hath 
been preached unto you, Jesus 


receive, until the times of the resti- 
tution of all things, which God hath 
spoken by the mouth of his holy 
prophets, from the beginning of the 
world. For Moses said: <A prophet 
shall the Lord your God raise up 
unto you of your brethren, like unto 
me: him you shall hear... .” 


142 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


said (Luke IV, 21): “ This day is fulfilled this scrip- 
ture in your ears.” ° 


b) The New Testament has confirmed the ful- 
filment of the Old Testament prophecies. It has 
also demonstrated their truth. When Jesus was 
engaged in recruiting His disciples, Philip said to 
Nathanael: “We have found him of whom 
Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, 
Jesus the son of Joseph of Nazareth.’* It was 
with the utmost confidence that our Lord appealed 
to Moses: “Think not that I will accuse you to 
the Father: There is :one that’ accuseth you, 
Moses, in whom you trust. For if you did be- 
lieve Moses, you would perhaps believe me also; 
for he ‘wrote of ‘me.’’.* » After He had’ fed. five 
thousand people with a few loaves of bread, those 
who had witnessed the miracle enthusiastically 
exclaimed: ‘This is of a truth the prophet that 
is to come into the world.”® When He had 
raised the widow’s son to life, there came a fear 
on those about Him, “and they glorified God, 
saying: A great prophet *® is risen up among 
us; and, God hath visited his people.” ** 

c) Christ exercised His teaching office by jour- 
neying about Palestine and preaching the glad 
tidings of salvation. 


6 Cfr. Matth. V, 5s. 96 mpopnrns 6 épxduevos els Tov 
7 John 1, 45. Koopmoyv.- John VI, 14. 


8 John V, 45 sq. 10 rpopynTns meéeyas- 
11 Luke VII, 16. 


CHRIST A TRUE PROPHET 143 


St. Matthew records that “the people were in admira- — 
tion at his doctrine; for he was teaching them as one 
having power, and not as the scribes and Pharisees.” ?? 
He presented Himself as the absolute Teacher of truth. 
Cfr. John XVIII, 37: “For this was I born, and for 
this came I into the world, that I should give testimony 
to the truth.” For it was “His Father’ who spoke 
through Him,!° and He Himself was “the way, and the 
truth, and the life.”1* Consequently, there can be no 
other teacher beside or above Him: “ Neither be ye called 
masters; for one igs your master,’ Christ.”*® Acknowl- 
edging Him as the sovereign teacher of mankind, Nico- 
demus says: “ Rabbi, we know that thou art come a 
teacher from God; for no man can do these signs which 
thou dost, unless God be with him.”’*7 Even so great 
a teacher as St.°John the Baptist literally paled in the 
glorious halo which encircled the Divine Master: “He 
was not the light, but was to give testimony of the 
light. 2* 

Nor must we forget the power of our Saviour’s ex- 
ample, which more effectively even than His words 
prompted men to embrace the truth and lead a virtuous 
life. Fully realizing that “Example serves where pre- 
cept fails,’ St. Luke in writing his Gospel, as he him- 
self admits,’° was chiefly concerned with the things 
which “ Jesus began to do and to teach.” 2° That it was 
the Redeemer’s express purpose to set a good example 
is manifest from His own declaration in John XIII, 15: 
“For I have given you an example,”! that as I have 


-12 Matth. VII, 28 sq. 18 John I, 8. Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, 
18 Cfr. John, XIV, ‘z0s-X VIL, -& Christology, pp. 31 saq.; H. Schell, 
14 John XIV, 6. Jahve und Christus, pp. 403 saqds 
15 Magister, kadnyjrns- Paderborn 1905. 
16 Matth. XXIII, 10. Cfr. John . 19 Acts I, 1. 

RUT, 13. 6 20 qrovety Te Kal OiddoKeELD. 


17 John III, 2. 21 brddevyuas 


144 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 

done to you, so you do also.” St. Paul strongly insists 
on the importance of our being made comformable to 
the image of the Son of God,” and did not rest until 
Christ had been formed in all his hearers.?* Christ 
was the beau-idéal of virtue, because He was without sin; 
and His example was most effective, because He was im- 
pelled by supreme charity. This accounts for the inex- 
haustible power which flows from the imitation of 
- Christ and never ceases to purify, ennoble, energize, and 
rejuvenate men and to lead them on to moral perfection. 
In confirmation of this truth we need but point to the 
lives of the Saints.*4 


d) For an adequate theological explanation of 
the singular greatness and perfection of Christ’s 
prophetical office we must go to its fountain- 
head, the Hypostatic Union. 


a) Endowed with a fulness of knowledge unparalleled 
in the history of the human race, Jesus was in a position 
to propound His teaching with absolute certainty and ir- 
resistible conviction.2> Equipped with miraculous pow- 
ers and the gift of prophecy, He was able to confirm and 
seal His words by signs and miracles. As the super- 
natural Head of grace, He was in the altogether unique 
position of one able to enlighten his hearers with the torch 
of faith and to fire their hearts with His grace. In all 
three of these respects He has absolutely no peer among 
men, and it is sheer folly to compare Him with Socrates 


22 Rom. VIII, 29. 
23 Gal. IV, 19. 


By Girl Sy Radey Vn. aM iG hes? 


stus als Erzieher. Eine methodische 
Studie iiber das hl. Evangelium, 2nd 
ed., Freiburg i902. For the teach- 


ing of the Fathers consult Petavius, 
De Incarn., II, 10; Stentrup, Soteri- 
ologia, thes. 134 sqq. 

25 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Christology, 
Ppp. 249 sqq. 


CHRIST A: TRUE PROPHET 145, 


or even with the greatest of the prophets, Moses and John 
the Baptist. 

8B) Nor can it be urged as an argument against the 
sublimity of His prophetical office, that Jesus addressed 
Himself only to the Jews of Palestine. He had excellent 
reasons for confining His personal activity to that particu- 
lar nation and country. We will enumerate four of the 
principal ones given by St. Thomas.2* (1) He had to 
fulfil the promises which God had made to the Jews in 
the Old Testament. (2) It was becoming that the Gos- 
pel should reach the gentiles through the instrumentality 
of God’s Chosen People. (3) Jesus had to pay due re- 
gard to the peculiar mentality of the Jewish nation. (4) 
The method He chose was better adapted than any other 
to demonstrate the triumphant power of the Cross. After 
His Resurrection He sent out His disciples to teach and 
baptize all nations, and when He had ascended into 
Heaven, He appointed a special Apostle for the gentiles. 
His teaching was as open and public as the scene of His 
activity. Unlike the pagan philosophers, He made no 
distinction between esoteric and exoteric truths. His 
motto was: “That which I tell you in the dark, speak 
ye in the light: and that which you hear in the ear, 
preach ye upon the housetops.” 27 

y) Our Divine Lord had very good reasons for dis- 
daining to consign His heavenly teaching to books. It 
eminently befitted His high office as Teacher of man- 
kind to employ the most perfect mode of teaching, 
namely oral instruction, which goes straight to the heart 
and reaches all, even those who are unable to read. It was 
for this same reason, in the opinion of St. Thomas, that 
He commanded His Church to instruct by word of mouth 


26S. Thecd, 3a, qu. 42, art. 1. 
27 Matth. X, 27. Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, qu. 42, art. 3. 


146 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


and constituted oral tradition a source of faith side by 
side with Sacred Scripture. Some of the wisest men 
of antiquity (e. g., Socrates and Pythagoras) exercised a 
tremendous influence over succeeding generations without 
ever having recourse to the stylus or the pen. Oral in- 
struction was admirably adapted to the propagation of 
Christianity. Had our Lord presented His teaching in 
the form of bookish lore, consigned to parchment or papy- 
rus, it would have become a veritable apple of discord. 
Then again, in the words of St. Thomas, “ those who 
refused to believe what the Apostles wrote, would not 
have believed Christ Himself had He consigned His doc- 
trines to writing.’ ?* 


3. THE ECCLESIASTICAL MAGISTERIUM A Con- 
TINUATION OF CHRIST’S PROPHETICAL OFFICE. 
—As the priesthood of our Divine Lord is con- 
tinued on earth by the celebration of the Holy 
Sacrifice of the Mass and the administration of 
the Sacraments, especially Holy Orders, so His 
prophetic office is continued by the magisterium 
of the Catholic Church. 


a) The very fact that Christ established a Church to 
teach “ all nations ” shows that He wished her to continue 
His prophetical office. He guaranteed her His special 
assistance and promised to be with her “all days, even to 
the consummation of the world.” *° Having established 
her as a teacher, He sent her the Spirit of Truth, who 

28S. Theol., l. ¢e-—On the apoc- Les Origines de PEglise d’Edesse et 
ryphal correspondence between our la Légende d’Abgar, Paris 1888; H. 
Lord and Abgar, King of Edessa, Leclerq, art. ““Abgar’’ in the Catholic 
cfr. R. A. Lipsius, Die edessenische Encyclopedia, Vol. I, pp. 42 sq. 


Abgarsage kritisch untersucht, ~9 Matth. XXVIII, 20. 
braunschweig 1880; J. Tixeront 


CHRIST A TRUE, PROPHET 147 


informs and vivifies her as the soul informs and actu- 
ates the body, and enables her to keep the deposit of faith 
intact against all attempts at diminution or distortion. 
Thus the infallibility of the Church and of her Supreme ~ 
Pontiff ultimately rests upon the prophetic office of Christ 
Himself, who is the infallible source and teacher of all 
irath.*° 

b) This explains why the Church participates in the 
prerogatives of the prophetic office as exercised by her 
Divine Founder. As the faithful custodian of the deposit 
of faith she teaches the whole truth. There is no higher 
magisterium conceivable than hers. The “ spiritual 
church ” expected by the Montanists and the “ Johan- 
nine church” imagined by some modern heretics are 
pure figments. Christianity is the absolute religion 
and cannot be measured by the inadequate yardstick of 
comparative science. The Catholic Church, through her 
connexion with Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, enjoys 
a truly divine authority, by which she proclaims with 
infallible certainty the dogmas of faith and morals and 
condemns heretical errors whenever the necessity arises. 
Her anathemas are as truly binding on all men as her 
dogmatic definitions. Finally, she is endowed with un- 
limited adaptability, which enables her to adjust herself to 
all times and circumstances, provided they do not run 
counter to the orthodox faith and the eternal principles of 
true morality. No matter how times may change, the 
Catholic Church, ever old and ever young, fills them with 
her own spirit, overcomes error and sin, and directs all 
legitimate efforts for the betterment of the race into their 
divinely appointed channels. There is no error so novel, 

30 Cfr. P. J. Toner, art. “‘Infalli- art. ‘“‘Unfehlbarkeit” in Herder’s 


bility” in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Kirchenlextkon, Vol. XII, pp. 249 
Vol. VII, pp. 790 sqq.; J. Pohle, sqq. 


148 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


no intellectual malady so grave that the Church is not 
able to counteract it with antidotes from her spiritual 
pharmacopeeia. Our own time furnishes a most instruc- 
tive exemplification of this truth. It is a period of 
transition and fermentation. Pius X has vigorously 
condemned the Modernistic errors endangering the faith, 
and there is no doubt that they can be effectively warded 
off if the nations will listen to the voice of Holy Mother 
Church.34 


31 Cfr. H. Pesch, S. J., Die soziale Befihigung der Kirche, 3d ed., 
Berlin igi. 


CHAPTER III 


CHRIST'S KINGSHIP 


I. DEFINITION OF THE TERM.—The word 
king (rex, Baodeds,) denotes a sovereign invested 
with supreme authority over a nation, country 
or tribe. 

a) Kingship includes three separate and distinct 
functions: legislative, judiciary, and executive, 
which together constitute the supreme power of 
jurisdiction or government. 


The royal dominium iurisdictionis must not be con- 
founded with what is known as the right of ownership 
(dominium proprietatis). The latter is directed to the 
possession of impersonal objects, while the former im- 
plies the governance of free persons or subjects. The 
two differ both logically and in fact, and neither can be 
directly deduced from the other. The ruling power of 
a king or emperor by no means implies the possession 
of property rights either in his subjects or their belong- 
ings. The subjects of a monarch are as free to possess 
private property as the monarch himself, not to-speak of 
the right of personal liberty. 

It may be well to observe, however, that these limi- 
tations apply to earthly kings only. God, being the Crea- 


149 


150 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


tor and Lord of the universe, is the absolute owner of all 
things, including men and their belongings. 


b) The royal power with its various func- 
tions may be either secular or spiritual. The 
former is instituted for man’s earthly, the latter 
for his spiritual benefit. Christ’s is a spiritual 
kingdom, and will continue as such throughout 
eternity. Holy Scripture and the Church fre- 
quently liken His kingship to the office of a shep- 
herd, to emphasize the loving care with which He 
rules us and provides for our necessities. 

2. Curist’s EartHty Kincsuip as TAUGHT 
IN SACRED SCRIPTURE.—Both the Old and the 
New Testament represent our Lord Jesus Christ 
as a true King, who descended upon this terres- 
trial planet-to establish a spiritual kingdom. This 
kingdom is the Catholic Church. Christ did not 
come as a worldly monarch, but as “the bishop 
of our souls.” ? 


a) If we examine the Messianic prophecies of the 
Old Testament we find the kingdom of Israel, or 
“ throne of David,” represented as a type of the Messianic 
kingdom that was to come. Cfr. 2 Kings VII, 12 Sqe: 
“I will raise up thy [David’s] seed after thee, which 
shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish 
his kingdom. He shall build a house [i. e., temple, 
church] to my name, and I will establish the throne of 

1Cfr. Pohle-Preuss. God: His Knowability, Essence and Attributes, 


pp. 286 sqq. 
2 Cfr. 1 Pet. II, 2s. 


CHRIST A TRUE KING ISt 


his kingdom for ever.” The same prediction 1s made 
in Psalms II, XXX, XXXVII, XLV, LXXII, and CIX. 
Isaias,* Daniel,* and Zacharias® depict the Messias in 
glowing colours as a Ruler, as the Prince of peace and 
the mighty General of a great army. These prophecies 
were all fulfilled, though not in the manner anticipated 
by the carnal-minded Jews. The Messias came as a 
King, but not with the pomp of an earthly sovereign, nor 
for the purpose of freeing the Jewish nation from the 
yoke of its oppressors. 

Nevertheless the New Testament hails the lowly in- 
fant born of the Blessed Virgin as a great King. Even 
before his birth the Archangel informs His Mother that 
“The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David 
his father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for 
ever.”® The wise men hurried to His manger from 
the far East and anxiously inquired: “ Where is he 
that is born king of the Jews?”* Yet when, after the 
miraculous multiplication of loaves, the Jews tried 
to “take him by force and make him king,’ Jesus 
“fled again into the mountain himself alone.”* And 
when, in the face of death, Pilate asked Him: “ Art 
thou a king then?” He answered: “Thou sayest 
that I am a king.”® After they had crucified Him, 
“they put over his head his cause written: This is 
Jesus the King of the Jews.” ?® Sorely disappointed in 
their worldly hopes, and still enmeshed in political am- 
bitions, the two disciples who went to Emmaus lamented: 
“ But we hoped, that it was he that should have redeemed 
rdsrael.”’ 2° | 


Sis TX.) 6) SAqS: FIs 8 John VI, 15. 

4 Dan. VII, 13 sqq. 9 John XVIII, 37. 

5 Zach. IX. 10 Matth. XXVII, 37. 

6 Luke I, 32 sq. K 11 Luke XXIV, 21. Cfr. Acts I, 6. 


7 Matth. II, 2. 


152 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


b) This seeming contradiction between the Old 
Testament prophecies and the actual life of 
our Lord Jesus Christ finds its solution in the 
Church’s teaching that His is a purely spiritual 
kingdom. Gir, Is. LX, 18 'sqq.; Jer, X XT 5 
sqq.; Ezech. XXXVII, 21 sqq. For the sake of 
greater clearness, it will be advisable to separate 
the quaestio iuris from the quaestio facti, and 
to treat each on its own merits. 


a) The quaestio facti— Taking the facts as we know 
them, there can be no doubt that Christ never intended 
to establish an earthly kingdom. He fled when the Jews 
attempted to make him king? He acknowledged the 
Roman Emperor as the legitimate ruler of Palestine and 
commanded the Jews to “render to Cesar the things 
that are Czsar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 18 
He consistently refused to interfere in secular affairs, 
as when he said to the man who asked Him to ad- 
judicate a question of inheritance: ‘‘ Who hath ap- 
pointed me judge, or divider, over you?” 14 And He 
expressly declared before Pilate:1® “My kingdom is 
not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, 
my servants would certainly strive that I should not be 
delivered to the Jews: but now my kingdom is not from 
hence. .c* 

B) The quaestio iuris— What first strikes us from 
the juridic point of view is: Did Christ merely refrain 
from asserting His legal claim to secular kingship, or 


12 John VI, ‘1s: gia, thes. 138. For a critical refu- 
18 Matth. XXII, 21. tation of Loisy’s errors see M. 
14 Luke XII, 14. Lepin, Christ and the Gospel (Eng- 
15 John XVIII, 36. lish tr.), Philadelphia s1gi1o, espe- 


16 Cfr, Ferd. Stentrup, Soteriolo- jally pp. 475 saq. 


CHRIST A TRUE KING 153 


had He no such claim, at least in actu primo? Catholic . 
theologians agree that as “the Son of David” Christ 
possessed no dynastic title to the kingdom of Juda; first, 
because His Messianic kingdom extended far beyond the 
limits of Palestine, in fact embraced the whole world; 
and secondly, because neither the Blessed Virgin Mary 
nor St. Joseph, though both descended from the “ house 
of David,” had any hereditary claim to the throne which 
had been irretrievably lost under Jechonias.‘7 There is 
another point on which theologians are also of one mind. 
By virtue of His spiritual kingship the Godman possesses 
at least indirect power over all secular affairs, for else His 
spiritual power could not be conceived as absolutely un- 
limited, which would have imperiled the purpose of the 
Incarnation. This indirect power over worldly affairs is 
technically known as potestas indirecta in temporalia. 
Its counterpart is the potestas directa in temporal, 
and in regard to this there exists a long-drawn-out con- 
troversy among theologians. Gregory of Valentia and 
Cardinal Bellarmine *® hold that Christ had no direct 
jurisdiction in secular or temporal matters, while 
Suarez ?® and De Lugo” maintain that He had. The 
affirmative opinion appeals to us as more probable, 
though the Scriptural texts marshalled in its favor by 
De Lugo! cannot be said to be absolutely convincing. 
hese texts..(Matth..XXVIII,.18; Acts X,:36;.1 Cor. 
OV.27; Apoc. 1, 5 and XIX, 16). can’ be ‘explained 
partly by the doctrine of the commumnicatio 1diomatum,™” 
partly by reference to our Lord’s spiritual kingdom. De 
Lugo’s theological arguments, however, are very strong 


a7 Cir. Jer.s XXII, (30. 20 De Myst. Incarn., disp. 30, § 1. 
18 De Rom. Pontifice, V, 4 sq. 21S Gets 5a 
19 De Myst. Vitae Christi, disp. 22 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Christology, 


425) Sect, 2; : pp. 184 sqq. 


154 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


indeed. Take this one, for example. Christ’s direct 
jurisdiction in matters temporal is based on the Hypo- 
static Union. On account of the Hypostatic Union His 
sacred humanity was entitled to such excellencies and 
prerogatives as the power of working miracles, the ful- 
ness of knowledge, the highest measure of the beatific 
vision, the dignity of headship over all creatures,”* etc. 
And it is but reasonable to conclude that there must 
have been due to Him in a similar way that other pre- 
rogative which we may call kingship over all crea- 
tures,2* From this point of view it may be argued that 
the theandric dignity of our Lord, flowing from the Hy- 
postatic Union, gave Him an imprescriptible claim to 
royal power, so that, had He willed, He could have 
deposed all the kings and princes of this world and con- 
stituted Himself the Head of a universal monarchy. 

Bellarmine’s apprehension that this teaching might 
exert a pernicious influence on the papacy, is absolutely 
groundless: For, in the first place, Christ’s vice-gerent 
on earth is not Christ Himself, and secondly, the pre- 
rogatives and powers enjoyed by our Lord, even those 
of a purely spiritual nature, are not eo ipso enjoyed 
by the Pope. “Christ was able to do many things in the 
spiritual realm,” rightly observes De Lugo, “ which the 
‘Pope cannot do; for example, institute sacraments, con- 
fer grace through other than sacramental channels, 
erer?:7> 

These considerations also explain why Christ declared 
Himself legally exempt from the obligation of paying 
taxes and “ paid the didrachmas” solely to avoid scan- 
dal,?¢ 

23 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Christology, 98 Lic... Me Ate 


pp. 239 sqq. 26 Cfr. Matth. XVII, 23 sqq. 
24 De Lugo, l. c., n. 8. 


CHRIST A TRUE KING 155 


The question as to the property rights enjoyed by our 
Divine Saviour may be solved by the same principle 
which we have applied to that of His temporal juris- 
diction. Vasquez was inconsistent in rejecting De 
Lugo’s solution of the former problem after accepting 
his view of the latter?” For, while it is perfectly true 
that the Godman never laid claim to earthly goods, but 
lived in such abject poverty that He literally “had not 
where to lay his head,” 8 this does not argue that He 
had no legal right to acquire worldly possessions. The 
simple truth is that He had renounced this right for good 
reasons. 

It is an article of faith, defined by Pope John XXII 
in his Constitution “ Quum inter nonnullos,’ that Christ 
actually possessed at least a few things as His personal 
property.?° 


3. Curist’s HEAVENLY KINGSHIP, OR THE 
DocMaA or His ASCENSION AND SITTING AT THE 
Ricut HAND oF THE FaTHER.—The Resurrec- 
tion of our Lord and His Descent into hell merely 
formed the preliminaries of His kingly office. It 
was by His glorious Ascension that He took for- 
mal possession of His royal throne in Heaven, 
which Holy Scripture describes as “sitting at the 
right hand of God.” Both His Ascension and 
His sitting at the right hand of God are funda- 
mental articles of faith, as may be judged from 
the fact that they have been incorporated into the 
Apostles’ Creed. 


27 De Incarn., disp. 87, cap. 6. Summa Theol., 3a, qu. 40, art. 3. 
28 Luke IX, 58. Cfr. St. Thomas, 29 Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 494. 


1] 


156 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


a) There is no need of entering into a detailed Scrip- 
tural argument to prove these dogmas. Our Lord Him- 
self clearly predicted His Ascension into Heaven,?° and 
the prophecy was fulfilled in the presence of many wit- 
nesses. Mark XVI, 19: “And the Lord Jesus, after 
He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and 
sitteth on the right hand of God.” ®4 

The argument from Tradition is copiously developed 
by Suarez in the 51st disputation of his famous treatise 
De Mysterus Vitae Christi. 

Our Lord “ascended by His own might,” says the 
Roman Catechism, “and was not raised aloft by the 
power of another, as was Elias, who ‘went up’ in a 
fiery chariot into heaven (4 Kings II, 11), or as was 
the prophet Habacuc (Dan. XIV, 35 sqq.), or Philip the 
deacon (Acts VIII, 39), who, borne through the air 
by the divine power, traversed far distant parts of the 
earth. Neither did He ascend into heaven solely as 
God, by the. supreme power of the Divinity, but also 
as man; for although the Ascension could not have taken 
place by natural power, yet that virtue with which the 
blessed soul of Christ had been endowed, was capable 
of moving the body as it pleased; and his body, now 
glorified, readily obeyed the command of the actuating 
soul. And thus we believe that Christ, as God and 
man, ascended by His own power into heaven.” *? 

The phrase, “ sitteth on the right hand of God,” must 
not, of course, be interpreted literally, since with God 
there is neither right nor left. It is a figurative ex- 
pression, intended to denote the exalted station occupied 


80 John VI, 63; XIV, 1 sqq;  rédv odpaviy kat éxdbicev éx Sekicov 
XVI, 28. Tov Qeov. 
31‘O ev ovy Kiptos "Inoots wera 32 Cat. Rom., P. I, ce 7, qu. 2. 


Td KaAHTAL avrois dynrAnupbn els Cfr. S. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, qu. 
Ly Poe.) a ee 


CHRIST) ATTRUE KING 157 


by our Lord in heaven,** and also His calm, immutable 
possession of glory and jurisdiction over the whole 
universe.** It is in His capacity of royal judge that 
Jesus will one day reappear with great power and maj- 
esty “to judge the living and the dead.” * 


b) The two dogmas under consideration have 
both a Christological and a Soteriological bearing. 


a) From the Christological point of view our Saviour’s 
Ascension as well as His sitting on the right hand of 

the Father signalize the beginning, or rather the con- 
- tinuation, of the status exaltationis, of which His Resur- 
rection and Descent into hell were mere preludes. His 
humiliation (status exinanitionis) in the “form of a 
servant,’ °° His poverty, suffering, and death, made 
way for an eternal kingship in Heaven. The truly 
_tegal splendor of our Divine Redeemer during and 
aiter His Ascension is more strongly emphasized in the 
_ Apostolic Epistles than in the Gospels. In the Epistles 
_ the epithet “Lord” (Dominus, & kbps) nearly always 
connotes royal dominion. Cfr. 1 Tim. VI, 15: “ Who 
is the Blessed and only Mighty, King of kings, and Lord 
of lords.” It is only since His Ascension into Heaven 
that Christ rules the universe conjointly with the Father, 
though this joint dominion will not reach its highest 
perfection till the day of the Last Judgment, when all 
creation will lie in absolute subjection “ under His feet.” 3? 

8) From the Soteriological point of view it would be 
wrong to represent Christ’s Ascension (not to speak of 
His Resurrection and Descent into hell) as the total or 


83 Cfr. Heb. I, 13. 86 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Christology, 
84 Cfr. Eph. I, 20 sqq. PP. 95 sq. 
835 Cfr. St. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, 37 Cfr. Eph. I, 22 sqq.; Heb. II, 8. 


qu. 58. 


158 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


even partial cause (causa meriioria) of our Redemption. 
The atonement was effected solely by the sacrifice of the 
Cross. Nevertheless St. Paul writes: “Jesus... en- 
tered . . . into heaven itself, that he may appear now in 
the presence of God for us.” #8 In other words, He con- 
tinues to exercise His mediatorial office in Heaven. 
How are we to understand this? St. Thomas explains 
it as follows: ‘“ Christ’s Ascension is the cause of our 
salvation in a twofold way, first on our part, and sec- 
ondly on His.. On our part, in so far as His Ascension 
directs our minds to Him. ... On His part, in so far 
as He ascended for our salvation, (1) to prepare for 
us the way to Heaven, ... (2) because Christ entered 
Heaven, as the High Priest entered the Holy of holies, 
to make intercession for us;*° ... (3) in order that, 
seated as Lord God on the throne of Heaven, He 
might thence send us divine gifts.”*° As is apparent 
from the last-mentioned two points, Christ’s kingship 
is closely bound up with His priesthood. In fact it 
may be said in a general way that the three functions 
or offices of our Divine Redeemer are so closely inter- 
twined that they cannot be separated. 

For the special benefit of canonists we would observe 
that the threefold character of these functions furnishes 
no adequate basis for the current division of the power 
of the Church into potestas ordinis, potestas magisteru, 
and potestas iurisdictionis.*: The traditional division into 
potestas ordinis and potestas iurisdictionis is the only 
adequate and correct one from the dogmatic point of 
view.*? 


38 piv éupavicOnvar T@ TpoocwTw 41 This division is employed by 
Tov Ocot brép Audy. Heb, IX, 24. Walter, Phillips, Richter, Hinschius, 
89 Heb. VII, 25. and others. 


40S. Theol., 3a, qu. 57, art. 6. 42 Cfr. Scheeben, Dogmatik, Vol. 


CHRIST A TRUE KING 159. 


4. CuRIsT’s KInGsHip as ContTINUED IN Hits 
CHURCH ON EartH.—We have shown that our 
Divine Redeemer did not claim secular or tem- 
poral jurisdiction. It follows a fortiori that the 
Church which He has established is a purely 
spiritual kingdom and must confine herself to the 
government of souls. 


a) The Catholic Church was not established as a polit- 
ical power. She represents that peaceful Messianic king- 
dom which was foreshadowed by the Old Testament 
prophets and which the Prince of Peace founded with His 
Precious Blood. Hence the hierarchical order displayed 
in the papacy, episcopate, priesthood, and diaconate, is 
purely spiritual. Hence, too, the means of sanctification 
which the Church employs (prayer, sacrifice, and the 
sacraments) are of an exclusively spiritual character. 
Christ, who was the King of Kings, did not disturb the 
earthly monarchs of His time in their jurisdiction, and it 
cannot be the mission of His Church to grasp at political 
power or treat temporal rulers as her vassals. Hers 
is a purely spiritual dominion for the sanctification of 
souls. 

Being God’s kingdom on earth, the Church exists in 
and for this world, but is not of it. The theory of a few 
medieval canonists that she enjoys direct jurisdiction over 
all nations and rulers, has no foundation either in 
Sacred Scripture or in history. It is unevangelical for 
the reason that Christ never claimed such power. It 
is unhistorical because the “donation of Constantine,” 
on which it rests, is a fiction.‘ This theory, which was 
I, p. 67, Freiburg 1873; Cavagnis, 43 Cfr. L. Duchesne, The Begin- 


Instit. Iuris Publ. Ecclesiae, 4th ed., nings of the Temporal Sovereignty 
Vol. I, p. 24, Rome 1906. of the Popes (English tr.), Pp. 120, 


160 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


inspired by the imposing phenomenon of the Holy Roman 
Empire, has never been adopted by the Church, nor is it 
maintained by the majority of her theologians and canon- 
ists. The relation between Church and State still re- 
mains a knotty problem.** Harnack seriously distorts the 
truth when he says: ‘‘ The Roman Church in this way | 
privily pushed itself into the place of the Roman world- 
empire, of which it is the actual continuation; the empire 
‘has not perished, but has only undergone a transforma- 
tion. If we assert, and mean the assertion to hold good 
even of the present time, that the Roman Church is the 
old Roman Empire consecrated by the Gospel, that is no 
mere ‘clever remark,’ but the recognition of the true 
state of the matter historically, and the most appropriate 
and fruitful way of describing the character of this 
Church. It still governs the nations; its popes rule like 
Trajan and Marcus Aurelius; Peter and Paul have taken 
- the place of Romulus and Remus; the bishops and arch- 
bishops, of the proconsuls; the troops of priests and 
monks correspond to the legions; the Jesuits, to the im- 
perial body-guard. The continued influence of the old 
Empire and its institutions may be traced in detail, down 
to individual legal ordinances, nay, even in the very 
clothes. That is no church like the evangelical com- 
munities, or the national churches of the East; it is a 
political creation, and as imposing as a world-empire, 
because the continuation of the Roman Empire.” *® ‘The 
possession of political power may be useful, nay, rela- 
tively speaking, necessary to insure to the Pope the free 
and untrammelled exercise of his spiritual functions ; but 


London 1908; J. P. Kirsch in the , 45 Das Wesen des Christentums, 
Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. V, pp. p. 157, Leipzig 1902 (English tr.: 
118 sqq. What is Christianity? p. 270, 2nd 


44 Cfr. J. Pohle in Herder’s Kir- ed., New York 1908). 
chenlexikon, Vol. XII, 229 sqq. 


CHRIST A TRUE KING 161 


nA 


it does not énter into the essence of the papacy, which for : 
centuries has flourished without it and still commands the 
highest respect in spite of its spoliation by the Italian 
government. 


b) The Church exercises a truly royal domin- 
ion over the souls of men, and hence must be enti- 
tled to all the prerogatives of a spiritual kingship. 
That is to say, within the limits of her divinely or- 
dained constitution, she possesses legislative as 
well as judicial power over her members, includ- 
ing the executive right of inflicting punishment.*® 
There can be no exercise of judicial power with- 
out the power of compulsion (potestas coactiva s. 
vindicativa) and it is, moreover, a formally de- 
fined dogma that the Church possesses this 
power.** 


The penalties which she is authorized to inflict are, 
of course, predominantly spiritual (penitential acts, ec- 
clesiastical censures, and especially excommunication) .** 
But she can also impose temporal and bodily punish- 
ments (poenae temporales et corporales). We know 
that she has exercised this power, and it would be temera- 
rious to deny that she possesses it.*° 

Has the Church also the power to put malefactors 
to death (ius gladii)? Canonists are not agreed on 
this point, though all admit that if the Church decides 
to inflict the death penalty, the sentence must be carried 


46Cfr. Matth. XVI, 19; XVIII, 48 Cfr, 1 Cor. IV, 21; V, 5; 2 
I5 sqq. Cory Ler sqesnir, Mam eaden zo, 
47 Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, En- 49 Cfr. Bouix, De Iudic., Vol. I, 


chiridion, n. 499, 640, 1504 Sq. p. 66, Paris 1855. 


162 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


out by the secular power (brachium saeculare), because it 
would be unbecoming for the Spouse of Christ to stain 
her hands with blood, even if a deadly crime had been per- 
petrated against her. , 

It is a historical fact that the Church has never pro- 
nounced (much less, of course, executed) the death sen- 
tence or claimed the right to inflict it. Whenever, in 
the Middle Ages, she found herself constrained to pro- 
nounce judgment for a crime which the secular power 
was wont to punish by death (e. g. voluntary and obsti- 
nate heresy), she invariably turned the culprit over to 
the State. The cruel practice of burning heretics has 
fortunately ceased and will never be revived. 

Regarded from the standpoint of religious principle, 
the question of the ius gladii is purely academic. The 
great majority of canonists seem to hold that the Church 
does not possess the right of inflicting capital punishment. 
The contrary teaching of Tarquini and De Luca*® has 
occasioned much unfavorable criticism, and Cavagnis 
undoubtedly voices the conviction of most contemporary 
canonists when he says *! that the so-called ius gladii has 
no solid basis either in Scripture or Tradition. Our Di- 
vine Redeemer did not approve the infliction of capital 
punishment,°? nay, He restrained His followers from 
inflicting bodily injury.°? St. Paul, in spite of ‘his sever- 
ity, never took recourse to any but spiritual measures. 
The great Pope Nicholas I said: “ God’s holy Church 
has no other sword than the spiritual; she does not kill, 
she dispenses life.” ** Her kingdom is purely spiritual, 


50 Inst. Iuris Eccl. Publ., Vol. I, 58 Cfr. Matth. XXVI, 52. 
pp. 261 sqq., Rome rogot. 54 “Sancta Dei Ecclesia gladium 
51 Inst. Iuris Publ. Eccl., 4th ed., non habet nist spiritualem, non occi- 
Vol. I, pp. 190 sqq., Rome 1906. dit, sed vivificat.” (Decr. Grat., c 


52 Cfr. Luke IX, 53 sqa. 6, causa 33, qu. 2.) 


CHRIST A TRUE KING 163 


and hence she must leave the infliction of capital pun- 
ishment to the secular power.*® 


The most determined opponent of the Church’s 
royal office is modern Liberalism, which employs 
all the powers of civil government to obstruct 
the exercise of her spiritual jurisdiction or to 
circumscribe that jurisdiction as narrowly as pos- 
sible. Among the means invented for this pur- 
pose are the so-called ius circa sacra, the appella- 
tio tamquam ab abusu,’® and the placetum re- 
gium,’’—in a word the whole iniquitous system 
known in English-speaking countries as Czesaro- 
papism or Erastianism °* and based on the per- 
nicious fallacy that the State is supreme in 
ecclesiastical affairs. 


READINGS : —* St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, 3a, qu. 22, and 
the Commentators.— A. Charre, Le Sacrifice de VHomme-Dieu, 
Paris 1899.—* V. Thalhofer, Das Opfer des Alten und Neuen 
Bundes, Ratisbon 1870—IpemM, Die Opferlehre des Hebréer- 
briefes, Dillingen 1855.— W. Schenz, Die priesterliche Tatigkett 
des Messias nach dem Propheten Isaias, Ratisbon 1892.— J. 
Grimal, Le Sacerdoce et le Sacrifice de Notre Seigneur Jésus- 
Christ, Paris 1908 (English tr. by M. J. Keyes, The Priesthood 
and Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Philadelphia 1915).—_ 
* Fr, Schmid, Christus als Prophet, nach den Evangelien darge- 


olic Encyclopedia, Volz-d;) pp. ‘656 


55 Cfr. A. Vermeersch, S. J., 
Tolerance (tr. by W. H. Page), pp. saq. 
58 saq., London 1913; J. Pohle, art. 57 Cfr. S. Luzio in the Catholic 


Encyclopedia, s. v. ‘‘ Exequatur,” 


“Toleration’”’ in the Catholic Ency- 


clopedia, Vol. XIV; J. Keating, S. 
J., in The Month, No. 582, pp. 607 
sqq. 

56 Cfr. R. L. Burtsell in the Cath- 


Vol. V, pp. 707 sq. 

58 On the true meaning of this 
loosely used term see B. Ward in 
the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. V, 


pp. 514 sdqq. 


164 OFFICES OF THE REDEEMER 


stellt, Brixen 1892.— Tanner, S. J., Cruentum Christi Sacrificium, 
Incruentum Missae Sacrificium Explicatum, Prague 1660.—B. 
Bartmann, Das Himmelreich und sein Konig nach den Synopti- 
kern, Paderborn 1904.— A. J. Maas, S. J., Christ in Type and 
Prophecy, 2 vols., New York 1893-5.— M. Lepin, Christ and the 
Gospel, or Jesus the Messiah and Son of God, Philadelphia 19to. 
— Wilhelm-Scannell, A Manual of Catholic Theology, Vol. II, 
pp. 196-207, 2nd ed., London 1r901— W. Humphrey, S. J., The 
One Mediator, pp. 1-41, London s. a.— P. Batiffol, L’Enscignement 
de Jésus, Paris 1906.— J. H. Newman, Sermons Bearing on Sub- 
jects of the Day, New Impression, London 1808, pp. 52-62.—Other 
authorities quoted in the foot-notes. 


APPENDIX 


THE ATONEMENT IN ITS RELATION TO GOD’S IMMUTABILITY 
(See page 39) 


There is another objection to the doctrine of Christ’s 
vicarious atonement which deserves a brief refutation 
because it has seemed so strong to at least one Catholic 
writer (Schell) that it has led him to substitute a new 
and false conception of the atonement for the traditional 
one of Catholic theology. This objection is based on the 
immutability of the Divine Essence and may be formu- 
lated as follows: The atonement implies a change of 
mind or heart in God, but there can be no change in God 
because He is actus purissimus. 

To assume a real change of mind or heart in God as a 
result of the atonement would indeed contradict the dogma 
of His immutability. But there is no such change in- 
volved in the dogma of the atonement, rightly understood. 
As the sun by means of the same rays produces contrary 
effects, e. g. melts ice and dries out a swamp, according 
to the differing quality of matter, so the immutable will 
of God either hates or loves man according as his moral 
state renders him worthy or unworthy of divine favor. 
The change involved in the process of justification, there- 
fore, is not in the least a change on the part of God, but 
entirely on the part of the sinner. God immutably loves 
that which is good and holy, whereas the sinner changes 
from evil to good. When we say that the passion of Our 
Lord “ appeased ” the divine wrath, we do not mean that 

165 


166 APPENDIX 


it affected God after the manner of a real cause or motive 
and induced Him to change His mind or will. The divine 
intellect and the divine will are predetermined in and by 
themselves from all eternity and admit no external influ- 
ence. In speaking of a reconciliation of God or the ap- 
peasement of His wrath, the Church and her theologians 
merely adapt themselves to the understanding of the peo- 
ple, and what they mean to inculcate is that the redemp- 
, tion of the human race was predetermined by God from 
all eternity solely on condition that adequate satisfaction 
would be given by the Godman. No matter whether the 
future Redemption be conceived as an absolute or as a 
hypothetical result of God’s predetermination, there is no 
trenching upon His immutability, because He inevitably 
foresaw the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the condition 
and arranged His eternal plan of salvation accordingly. 
In the objective order of things God can will a future 
event either immutably in itself, or in connection with 
and as a consequence of some other event, which is related 
to the first as a cause to its effect. The causes involved 
in such a hypothetical decree of the divine will operate 
entirely outside of the Divine Essence without in any wise 
influencing or changing that Essence.? 

1 See the chapter on ‘* God’s Im- Stufler’s paper, “Die Erlésungstat 
mutability” in the first volume of Christi in ihrer Beziehung eu Gott,” 
this series, God: His Knowability, in the Innsbruck Zeitschrift fiir 


Essenca, and Attributes, 2nd ed.,  katholische Theologie, 1906, pp. 385 
pp. 298-305, St. Louis 1914, and P. — sqq. 


INDEX 


A 
Abélard, 54. 
Adam, 24, 26, 27, 28, 20, 33, 40, 
42, 49 sd. 
Adamantius, 52. 
Adequacy of the atonement, 60 
sqq. 


Adoration, 112. 
“Avdns O2 sqq. 
fons, 6 


Albert the Great, 30. 

Alexander VIII, 78. 

Ambrose Catharinus, 31. 

Ambrose, St., 29, 135 sq. 

Angels, 16 sq., 33 sq., 80 sq. 

Anselm, St., 21, 54, 55. 

*"Avridutpov, 62, 

Apocatastasis, 80. 

eae” tamquam ab abusu, 
163. 

Ascension, Christ’s, 155 sqq. 

Athanasius, St., 15, 20. 

Atonement, Vicarious, 35 saqq.; 
Properties of, 60 sqq.; Real- 
ization of, 84 sqq. 

Augustine, St., 10, 16, 21, 22, 
29, 33, 42, 53, 67, 79, 82, 93; 
95, 124 sq. 


B 


Bajus, 73. 

Baptism, 103. 

Baptism of Christ, 120. 
Barnabas, Epistle of, 121. 
Bellarmine, 153, 154. 

Bernard of Clairvaux, St., 53. 
Bernard of Siena, 31. a 


Berruyer, 67. 

Beza, 92. 

Blavatsky, Madame, 44. 

Body of Christ, Glorified, 105 
sq. 

Bonaventure, St., 26 sq. 

Books, Why Christ wrote no, 
145 sq. 

Bougaud, 31. 


(8 


Ceesaropapism, 163. 

Calvin, Io sq., 75, 9I, 92, 94. 

Calvinists, 123. 

Capital punishment, Has the 
Church the right to inflict 
it? 161 sqq. 

Capreolus, 58. 

Cavagnis, 162. 

Child, Why Christ came into 
the world as a, 17 sq. 

Christ, Our Mediator, 7 sqq; 
His Incarnation, 13 sqq.; 
Why He assumed a human 
rather. than an angelic na- 
ture, 16 sqq.; Why He came 
into. the world as a child, 
17 sq.; Gained merits for us, 
56 sq.; When? 57 sq.; The 
principal object of His meri- 
torious actions, 58 sq.; Ade- 
quacy of His atonement, 60 
sqq.; Superabundance there- 
of, 70 sqq.; Died for all the 
faithful, 75 sqq.; Died for 
all men, 77 sqq.; His death 
on the cross, 85 sqq.; His 


167 


168 


descent into hell, 91 sad. 5 
His Resurrection, IOI sqq.; 
His priesthood, III sqq., 127 
sqq.; His intercession for us 
in Heaven, 135 sqq.; His 
prophetical office, 140 sqq.; 
His kingship, 149 sqq.; His 
Ascension and sitting at the 
tight hand of the Father, 155 


Sqq. 
Christus, 120. 
Chrysostom, St. John, 71. 


Church, The Catholic, 146 ‘sqq., 


159 sqq. 

Clement VI, 74. 

Clement of Rome, St., 51._ 

Congruity of the Redemption, 
13 sq. 

Constantine, Donation of, 159. 

Cross, 85 sqq.; Sacrifice of the 
114 sqq. 

Cyril of Jerusalem, Sts 75, 


D 


Damascene, St. John, 16. 
Dante, 98 

David, 153. 

Deatly of Christ, 85 sqq., III 


De Tare: 162. 

Deluge, 100 sq. 

De Lugo, 26, 153 sqq. 

Demiurge, 

De Rada, 63. 

Descent into hell, Christ’s, 91 
sqq. 

Devil Role of the, in the In- 
carnation, 51 sqq. 

Diekamp, Fr 

Dominus, 157. 

Dorholt, B., at, AI. 

'Du Cappucce, ats 

Duns Scotus, 30, 63. 

Durandus, QI. 


E 


Ephesus, Third General Coun- 
cil of, 44 sq., 116. 
Erastianism, 163. — 


INDEX 


Eternity of Christ’s priesthood, 
133 Sqq. 
Expiation, II2, 121. 


F 


Faber, ‘F.\ Way '3. 

Francis de Sales, St3.3i, 
Franzelin, 66. 

Frassen, 63. 

Funke, B., 21. 


G 


Gay, 3I. 

Gnosticism, 41, 43 sq. 
Gottschalk, 77. 

Gregory of Nazianzus, 52. 
Gregory of Nyssa, St., 52. 
eae of Valentia, 26, 66, 


153. 
Grotius, Hugo, 51. 
H 


Harnack, 55, 160. 

Hell, Christ’s descent into, 91 
sqq. - 

Henno, 63. 

Hierarchy, 159. 

Holy Orders, 146. 

Holy Roman Empire, 160. 

Homo gloriosus, 26, 30. 

Homo passibilis, 26, 30. 

Hypostatic Union, 14, 22, 63, 
©5, 74, 123, 129, 133, 139, 44 


I 


Imitation of Christ, 144. 

Impeccantia, 42. 

Incarnation, The, 13 sqq., 19, 
21 sq., 25 Sqq., 127 sq. 

Infertores partes terrae, 93. 

Infernum, 94 

Infinite value of Christ’s atone- 
ment, 72. 

Innocent X, 76. 

Ireneus, St., 52, 93. 


Isaias, 45 sqq., 131, I4I sq. 


INDEX 


Ius circa sacra, 163. 
Ius gladii, 161 saqq. 


J 


Jansenists, 70. 

Jansenius, 75 sq. 

Janssens, L., 26. 

Jewish sacrifice, 117 sq. 
John XXII, 155. 

John the Baptist, 143. 
Joseph, St., 153. 

Judge, Christ the royal, 157. 
Jurisdiction of the Church, 
_ 159 sq. 

Justification, 103. 


K 


Kenosis, 20. 

King, 149 sq. 

“King of the Jews,” 151. 
Kingship, Christ’s, 149 sqq. 
Kleutgen, 26. 


L 


Last Judgment, 157. 

Last Supper, 132. 

Lateran, Fourth Council of 
the, OI. 

Leo IX, to4. 

Lessius, 17, 26, 33. 

Leibniz, 19. 

Liberalism, 163. 

Limbo, Speculations regarding 
the location of, 908. 

Limbus patrum, 91 sq., 94, 95- 

Limbus puerorum, sqq. 

Logos, 6, 24. 

Luke, St., 143. 

Lull, Raymond, Io. 

Lutheranism, 40. 


M 


Magisterium, The ecclesiasti- 
cal, 146 sqq. 

Malebranche, 109. : 

“Man of Sorrows,” 131. 


169 
Saoahe Aste not a true sacrifice, 


126. 

Mary B. V., 153. 

Mass, 116, 132, 146. 
Mastrius, 64. 

Mediator, 5 sqq. 

Mediator naturalis, 7. 
Mediator per gratiam, 7. 
Mediatorship, 5 sqq. 
Melchisedech, 127, 130, 131 sq. 
Merit, 55 sqaq. 

Merits of Christ, 56 sqq. 
Meritum de condigno, 56. 
Meritum de congruo, 56. 
Messias, 141. 

Milton, 98 

Modernism, 50, 148. 
Monophysitism, 122, 123. 
Montanism, 147. 

Mosaic sacrifices, 117 sqq. 
Moses, I4I, 142, 145. 


N 


Necessity of the Redemption, 
18 sqq. 

Nestorianism, 122, 123. 

Nicholas I, 162. 

Nominalists, 61. 


O 


Offices of the Redeemer, 110 
sqq. | 

Optimism, 19 sq. 

Ordination to the priesthood, 
Christ’s, 127 sqq. . 

Origen, 52, 80. 

Origenism, 104. 

“Our Father,’ The, 43. 


F 


Pantheism, 41. 

Paraclete, 136 sq. 

Passion, Christ’s, 72, 86 sqq. 

Paul, St., 38, 48, 50, 76, 79, 103, 
108, 118 sqq., 128 sq., 130, 
13I sq., 134, 138, 144, 162. 

Pelagianism, 41 sqq. 

Pell, G. A., 41. 


170 


Perfection of the atonement, 
Intrinsic, 60 sqq.; Extrinsic, 


75 Sqq. 
Pesch, Chr.,\ 26. 
Petavius, 26, 77, 136 sq. 
Peter,’ St,/ 90" sq. 
Pfleiderer, 55. 
Pilate, 151, 152. 
Pius V,0173: 
Pius X, 148. 
Placetum regium, 163. 
Plato, 95. 
Polycarp, St., 51. 
Pope, 154. 
Potestas coactiva of the 
Church, 161. 
Poverty of Christ, 155. 
Prayers of Christ, 132 sq. 
ties ou Blood, 48 sq., 61 sq., 


Predestinarianism, 75 sqq. 

Predestination, 75. 

Predestination of the 
deemer, 24 sqq. 

Priest, Christ a true, III sqq., 


Re- 


127 sqq. 
Priesthood of Christ, 111 sqq., 
127 sqq. 
Prophet, Christ as a, 140 sqq. 
Prosper of Aquitaine, 79. 
Punishment, The  Church’s 
right to inflict, 161. 
Purgatory, 94, 95 sq. 


R 


Rationalism, 38, 41 sqq., IIS. 

Reatus culpae, 36. 

Reatus poenae, 36, 37. 

Redemption, Congruity of the, 
13 sqq.; Necessity of the, 18 
sqq.; A free gift of God, 2o 
sqq.; Predestination of the, 
24 sqq.; Through Christ’s 
vicarious atonement, 35 sqq. 

Resurrection, The, 101 sqq. 

Richard of St. Victor, 21. 

Rigor iustitiae, 66, 60. 

Risi, 31. 

Riviére, J., 52. 

Rupert of Deutz, 30. 


INDEX 


— 


Sacrifice, III sqq. 

Sacrifice, Bloody, 111 sqq. 

Sacrificial act, Christ’s, 125 sq. 

Satisfaction, 35 sqq., 55 sqq., 60 
sqq. 

Schell: "37; 

Schoulza, P., 137. sq. 

Scotists, 25 sq., 30 sqq., 61, 
63 sq. 

Second Person of the Trinity, 
Why did He become incar- 
nate? 15 sq. 

“Servant of God,” 46 sq. 

Shepherd, Christ our, 150. 

Sin, Grievous, 36 sq. 

Sitting at the right hand of 
God the Father, 155 sqq. 
Socinianism, 38, 42 sq., 51, 115, 

123))'.130, E31, 7137, 

Socinus, Faustus, 42, 138. 

Socinus, Laelius, 42. 

Socrates, 88, 95, 144. 

Sprinkling of the blood of 
Christ, 88. 

Stancarus, Francis, 123. 

Status exaltationis, 157. 

Status exinanitionis, 157. 

Stentrup, 26. 

suarez, 22, 31, 33, 61, 66, 60, 
71, 156. 


T 


Tanner, 66. 

Tarquini, 162. 

Teacher, Christ asa, 140 sqq. 

Temporal power of the papacy, 
160 sq. 

Tepe, 26. 

‘Peresa:’ St., (00. 

Tertullian, 80, 93, 121 sq. 

Thalhofer, 137 sq., 130. 

Theosophy, 41, 44. 

Thomas, St., On the functions 
of mediatorship, 8; On the 
mystery of the Incarnation, 
14 sq.; On the motive of the 
Incarnation, 26 sq.; On the 
infinity of grievous sin, 36; 


INDEX 


On the scope of Christ’s 
merits, 59; On the dignity of 
Christ’s flesh, 72; On the ne- 
cessity of Christ’s Passion, 
72 sq.; On the universality 
of the atonement, 82 sq.; On 
the congruity of Christ’s 
death on the cross, 88 sq.3 
On His descent into hell, 96; 
On sacrifice, 114; On the 
priesthood, 139; On the ques- 
tion why Christ confined His 
personal activity to one par- 
ticular time and _ country, 
145; On the question why 
the Redeemer taught only by 
word of mouth, 145 sq.; On 
Christ’s Ascension, 158. 

Thomassin, 136 sq. 

Thomists, 26 sqq., 64 sq. 

Toledo, Eleventh Council of, 
106 sq. 

Toleration, 163. 

Toletus, Card., 26, 29. 

Tournely, 21, 138. 

Tradition, 145 sq. 

Trent, Council of, 45, 56, 58, 78, 
81, 8s, 116, 124, 130. 

Triumph over hell, Christ’ S 95. 


171 
U 
Unction of Christ, 127 sqq. 
“Unigenitus,’ Bull, 73 sq. 
Universality of the atonement, 

75 sqq. 
V 

Vasquez, 26, 136 sq., 155. 
Vicarious atonement, 35 sqq.; 


Properties of, 60 sqq. 
Voluntas salvifica, 75, 82, 97. 


W 
Wyclif, 18 sq. 


Y 
Ysambert, 31. 


Zz 


ZAM Ly P39 130: 
Zwinglians, 123. 


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